Meanings are created through modalities, or different aspects of creation.
Perhaps the most influential is the social setting of the image. If the image is intended to
reflect society, then the image gains meaning through its social settings surrounding it. That
is to say the economic, social, political relations going on not only at the time the image is
created, but also seen. The idea that the image changes meaning based on different cultural
contexts is, recontextualization. The need to define the image based on social context plays an
important role. The image is defined socially in three different ways, in its construction, the
image, and the audience.
Construction:
Using the social to define the image at the construction level questions an image's truthfulness.
If an image is created for the purpose of income, then the image may be staged. There may be a
message or theory that the photographer intends to get across with the image, this is called
auteur theory. However, it is argued "the image is always made and seen in relation to other
images, this wider visual context is more significant for what the image means than what the
artist thought they were doing (Roland Barthes in Rose)."
The social circumstances also effected what the image contained. If the image was for economic
purposes, then it pictured commodities that could easily be sold for advertisements: cars,
fashion, and other luxuries.
Image:
The image captures society and thus pictures the social. Thus the image itself tells an economic
and cultural story. One can guess the era, time of day, setting, and so on based on what is
captured in the image. However, such meanings can change based on events that precede the image.
These readings are dependent on the audience.
Audience:
"There has emerged an attachment to surface rather than roots, to collage rather
than in-depth work, to super-imposed quoted images rather than worked surfaced, to a collapsed
sense of time and space rather than solidity achieved cultural artefact (Harvey in Rose p. 17)."
The recontextualization and mobilization of an image is most dominantly laid in the hands on
the audience. The changing fashions, pop art, media images, and urban lifestyles are constantly
redefining the way an image is viewed. Where the image is placed also changing the meaning of
the image. If the image is hung in a gallery, we look at it differently than we would if it was
hung on a person's wall at home. To move an image over space, location, or time is to change it's
meaning.
