Myth today, Barthes says, is a message - not a concept, idea, or object. More specifically, myth is defined "by the way it utters its message", it is thus a product of "speech", rather than of "language". (Barthes 1972).
"Semiology - the close analysis of process of meaning by which the Bourg Mythologies is, superficially at least, a rather puzzling title for a book concerned with the meanings of the signs that surround us in our everyday lives. A myth, after all, is a story about superhuman beings of an earlier age, of ancient Egypt, Greece or Rome. But the word `myth' can also mean a fictitious, unproven or illusory thing. This is closer to the sense that Barthes explores in Mythologies. Barthes is concerned to analyze the `myths' circulating in contemporary society, the false representations and erroneous beliefs current in the France of the postwar period." (Barthes 1972).
These myths that Barthes discusses are portrayed by the manipulation of first order signs. They give people a distorted sense of reality. .
Semiotics plays an important role in culture. Each culture has its own form of producing signs which distinguish it from others. For example, the English speaking culture produces its "text" which if you do not speak English is useless to you. On the other hand if you speak only English, those text produced by other cultures are useless to you. An advertisement for a vacation that shows a beautiful beach with palm trees and crystal clear water without any text may mean the same thing to two totally different cultures, vacation. If you took the fore mentioned advertisement and put in English at the bottom, "Do Not Pollute Our Oceans", to the non English speaking culture it may still represent a vacation but to the English speaking person, this dream vacation just turned into a public service announcement.
The first of the two advertisements I chose was a Chivas Regal (12 yr premium Scotch Whiskey).
