Evolutionary Considerations
Let us briefly consider the relevance of the three modes of word-image relationship to the study of message propagation in the media. It may already has become apparent that the iconic, the indexical, and the symbolic word-image relationships refer to different strategies and phases of the propagation of messages: first, there is an indexical phase , a symbolic phase comes last. How does the iconic enter this evolutionary process? For lack of time, I must restrict myself to advertising campaigns.
A sequence index-icon-symbol is clearly evident in three phases which we can observe in the evolution of advertising campaigns:
(1) The indexical word-image relationship predominates in the phase of epiphany, the phase in which a product is introduced in the market. Since the product is new, it must be shown, pointed at, and indexically related to its name.
(2) The second phase is the phase of repetition and affirmation. Prototypical of this phase are advertisements of the type "Omo is Omo", or "Persil is Persil". The image repeats the message of the text, and the text says nothing new about the product. The image is an icon of the text, and the text duplicates iconically the message of the image. The intratextual repetition of the same message makes the message in the end autoreferential or tautological.
(3) Only few advertising campaigns advance beyond these first two phases of indexical and iconic word-image relationships to a symbolic phase, where, as described above, word and image evoke each other by a habit of the interpreter. This takes place in a phase that we might call the phase of habitualization. The consumers have now become completely acquainted with the product and need only to be reminded of its existence. Products that can be advertised in this way, as in the Marlboro campaign, must have attains a climax of familiarity with their consumers, and one might suppose that this mode of advertising is suitable to guarantee the eternal presence of this product on the market. However, habits tend to change and when new habits cause a decline in the popularity of a product, new messages are necessary to counteract the threat of such a decline in popularity.