Image Music Text

A great read

I have made sure I've always has a copy of this, ever since first reading it as a random choice in the ICA in London, while waiting for my date to arrive (in the hope it would seem cool and interesting to befound reading it) in 1985. And, unexpectedly, it opened my mind to new ways of thinking about the communication between us all and how we relate to and understand/don't understand one another that have stayed with me and developed throughout my life.And, also, as a bonus, the date went very, very well ;-)

If you're looking for solid theory on advertising, the media, photography, and literature then you've come to the right theorist. Roland Barthes work is approachable in a way that Derrida and Foucault just isn't - or maybe that's just me.'Image, Music, Text' is a collection of Barthes essays covering everything from the photographic message, to the rhetoric of the image, and his famous essay the Death of the Author. If you need to write an academic essay or paper on pretty much any area of contemporary culture then this book is invaluable.Now I'd better get back to writing my theoretic framework for my PhD....

Terry Eagleton describes it as neologistic (Barthes' style); I would add parenthetical(if you see what I mean) but once you come to terms with the idiosyncracies of style it reads quite smoothly - a good job by Stephen Heath. Some of the reasoning can be difficult/obscure but you do feel his hearts in the right place (left, that is, of centre).

I bought this book for academic purposes and now will use it as a reference tool often for research.Would recommend this to anyone working in qualitative research, especially narrative, photo-elicitation, film and images. a brilliant selection of essays, wouldn't expect anything less from Barthes.

All I have to do now is read it.

Daughter loves it

good essays, authoritative, quite technical and deals with linguistics comprehensively. Connecting image, music and text academically is what to expect here.