As a media student, it fascinates me how individual experiences, previous knowledge, demographic variables, and societal "norms" or professionally speaking, 'myths', shape the way that we extract and interpret meaning from content we consume. We use Semiotics, which, simply put, is the study of signs and symbols, and how they can be pulled apart in text and media. In Semiotics, we are prompted to investigate the unconscious patterns that form audience behaviour and ways they interact with it.
As such, we look closely at how content is both denotated vs the connotation perceived by the audience. Consider this very famous image, the denotation of the portrait is a teenage girl with a red headscarf, and a penetrating gaze, focused directly into the camera. Vibrant colours and composition (close up) puts the focus on the individual’s facial expression and makes it almost impossible to ignore. Virtually calling the audience to extract meaning.
What's truly amazing about this photograph, is the way the world perceived its connotation. Published on the front cover of National Geographic, in 1985. The image quickly "became an international symbol of war-torn Afghanistan". As the article’s title conveyed, "Haunted eyes tell of an Afghan refugee’s fears” which significantly influenced the audience, wanting to be moved by the occurrences in Afghanistan. As it was published during the ongoing war, the Nat Geo audience's interpretation of the image was shaped to extract the meaning of the portrait to be of a young girl, traumatised by the impact of war. A "sense of purity amidst the unkempt and dishevelled surroundings". However, as the photojournalist Tony Northrup decoded in a 2019 article, "the fear in those eyes was most likely the fear of (the photographer) Steve McCurry". Additionally, the image that Western society had idolised as a raw look into the "anonymous, distant location - or else of refugee in crisis" was directly influenced by McCurry, as "she (Afghan Girl) had been moved to a different location with better lighting and a clean background", to enhance the image’s composition and make more visually compelling.
Semiotician Daniel Chandler believes, "The choice of words often involves connotations". Illuminating the influence the publication's title had on readers interpretations and its ability to construct an alternate, richer meaning for the photograph.
There are multiple ways that this image could possibly be interpreted. For example, a viewer with an emotional connection with Afghanistan may feel sad, fear, dread around the events that transpired, however an individual who supports the opposing force and their actions may be feel satisfied, pride, even joy. I, myself, after studying this image in high school photography view it more structurally, as I understand the history of the work as well as the photographer who took it. Looking at it more composition based, focusing less on the emotional meaning.
As Saussure introduced, with the concept of the Signifier - "the form which the sign takes" and Signified - "the concept it represents". Afghan Girl is an example of the concept of the signifier and what was signified through NAT Geo’s manipulation. Highlighting how our personal factors, signs - such as text and other events occurring in the world at the time, can shape the perception of media.
