Roland Barthes, Mythologies

Abstract

ABSTRACTRoland Barthes's 1957 collection of essays, Mythologies, was one of the first critical reflections on postwar popular culture. Barthes's concise analyses of contemporary French culture and accompanying theoretical essay had a profound influence on a variety of fields, including design studies. For design critics and practitioners alike, Mythologies helped shape an understanding of how designed artifacts operate in a mass consumer culture: less as functional objects and more as metaphoric vehicles of collective desire. Barthes's critical interventions are particularly pertinent in the early twenty-first century as a provocative inter-disciplinary model for contemporary design studies. This article begins with a discussion of Barthes's intellectual foundations for Mythologies and a consideration of the work in its original context. It then adapts Barthes' techniques in order to examine the myth of global digital determinism embodied in the recent One Laptop per Child project.