Roland Barthes

Barthes studied semiology (the study of signs), this consisted of a signifier (a word/image/sound and so on) and its meaning. To do this he looked at the denotations and the connotations of the signifier. A denotation is what is actually happening and the connotation is what we relate to it; for instance, the signifier could be an image of Donald Trump yelling, the denotation is that Trump is yelling, and the connotation could be that the US President is saying something stupid again.

Denotations and connotations are organised into mythologies (or myths). Mythologies are social constructs that come from politics and journalism. Put simply, they are the ideological meaning. These make ideology seem natural; for example, a bulldog might activate a myth of Britishness.