The Symbolic Composition And Ideograph Of Refugee Images

In 2015,the largest refugee crisis in Europe broke out since the World War II.A large number of news photos showing refugees' long-distance migration,obstructed transit and injuries were published in the media.A photo of a three-year-old Syrian refugee,Aylan Kurdi who die on the beach,was reported by the media and shocked the world.From the perspective of structuralism,refugee images are an ideographic system constructed by a set of symbolic systems,which influences people's cognition and behaviors subtly.This study takes refugee images in the World Press Photo Contest as a sample,integrates the theory of visual culture and communication semiotics,and uses descriptive statistics and semiotics to explore the symbolic composition and ideographic process of refugee images.Firstly,the visual composition of 348 refugee images is analyzed from three aspects: character attribute,shooting technique and symbol presentation,and the visual presentation features in refugee images are summarized.Secondly,using Roland Barthes' "myths" analyzes the symbolic meaning process of the three thematic images.Finally,it analyzes the influence of the discourse context on the image ideogram from the micro,medium and macro aspects.The study found that refugee images focus on the theme of “refugee suffering”.Photographers often use medium-near-view,flat-shot,black-and-white visual expression techniques to closely outline the external image and inner emotions of small groups of refugees.Children appear more frequently in the image,and body shape and eyes are the most common symbolic elements in refugee images.Inside the image,with the rhetorical practice of metaphor and metonymy,refugee images realize the connotation and complete the construction of symbolic meaning.Outside the image,the intertextual,contextual and cultural triple contexts complete the assignment of image meaning.