A central debate within visual consumption research concerns the polysemy of
images. Some approaches suggest that images float in the ‘postmodern’ world—signs
disconnected from signifiers—leaving viewers free to generate novel, resistant, and
idiosyncratic meaning. Certainly, consumers generate their own meaning, as they bring their
own cognitive, social, and cultural lenses to whatever they see. However, researchers
generally agree that this does not mean that the historical and political processes that also
generate meaning are eliminated – images exist within cultural and historical frameworks that
inform their production, reception, circulation, and interpretation.