The notion that meaning is embedded in an image is false. Meaning is not represented, but is created in the interpretation of a representation. This is to say, representation is the way meaning is given to things depicted, for example an image in the media. So representation is active and creative, as apposed to concrete because the meaning is never constant.
(True Meaning)———–→(gap of representation)←———–(New Meaning)
Because true meaning in an image is never definitive representation of the meaning is impossible, rather new meaning is created BY the active interpretation of the representation. Culture is a series of representations of events that allow us to make sense of the world. Similar meanings arise in culture because of our shared conceptual maps.
Conceptual maps are language based and are a way of mapping everything out. That is to say classifying things. Everything we know in this world we have put into categories in order to make sense of it. Conceptual maps are within the individual and serve as a foundation for meaning. Meaning stays within the context of our conceptual maps. Language externalizes the meanings we make of the world. Without language meanings could not be exchanged or represented. Because meaning happens in the interpreting, it cannot be fixed. Meaning is inconstant. Advertisers and power figures may try to fix meaning. This halts the flow of interpretation. This is a problem because images produce knowledge and when we perceive the intended meanings of advertising, we accept it as normal. It is important to practice open representation, which involves asking questions to open up new meanings. Open up stereotypes.
