Analysis Of National Public Radio By Ronald Barthes

The image of a confused refugee child in Aleppo, Syria- covered in dirt and blood while he waits in an ambulance to be treated- globally, this image has come to represent a metaphor of the turmoil and struggle of destruction in the Middle East. As constructed by the mainstream media, this image, taken from a video in National Public Radio (NPR), was used as a key influencer in news outlets to show what war was doing overseas in countries such as Syria. However, the cultural message conveyed by this image, as constructed by the mainstream media, is as “myth” (Barthes 3); The construction of this image, while simple at first glace, portrays what theorist Ronald Barthes describes as “modern mythologies” that in turn create a series of “collective

While the use of a connotative and denotative structure is important to understand the make up of the image the myth serves as the reality that the photo journalist and publications are attempting to make. With no argument being made the image, as provoked by its creators, attempts to ask the audience to disregard any political association or attribute it has with Syria and simply present the image of a young bo in turmoil- thus creating a “fact” (Barthes 4). In comphrehending the Depoliticised speech in the image, clear codes and signs are used to demonstrate a semiotic breakdown of this powerful cultural message of a boy in

Within these signs lie specific conventions that overtime ask the audience to recognize the symbolic, iconic, and indexical signs of a photo (Walton 11). When attempting to understand the signs of the NPR image, a formula is needed to help “deconstruct” the cultural meaning of image; this “formula” consistes of three messages: Linguistic, Non coded iconic and Coded Iconic messages that in turn illustrate the naturalization and construction of the image itself. Within this particular image the linguistic message is derived from the visuals depicted in the iamge such as the orange coloring and laveling that gives culturally meaning that he is in a ambulance, by dennotating the labeling of the ambulance itself and the connation of the childs emotional and physical state (Walton 11). The non coded iconic message however layers this by asking to simply dennotate the physical descrition of a boy sitting in a orange intetiro room; in contrast the coded iconic message presents itself through connotating a constrast of imagery- a ambulance, war affected child seeking treatment. The cultural codes however needed would be to understand the colors and linguistic signs associated with an ambulance such as the cross symbol and the colors red and orange that are commonly associated with such (Walton 14). This in turn creates a