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Reading Advertisements

Reading Advertisements. The Advertising Business. professionalized & competitive – highly creative, well-educated people studied semiotics (Brit ad agency called Semiotic Solutions) makes ads more effective large sums spent on it thought to be effective. Review: Semiotics. signs codes

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Reading Advertisements

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  1. Reading Advertisements NEW271Y

  2. The Advertising Business • professionalized & competitive – highly creative, well-educated people • studied semiotics (Brit ad agency called Semiotic Solutions) • makes ads more effective • large sums spent on it • thought to be effective NEW271Y

  3. Review: Semiotics • signs • codes • conventions • denotation • connotation • myth NEW271Y

  4. denotation • connotation NEW271Y

  5. Myth • ways of thinking re people, products, places, ideas • structured to send messages • We combine signs in complex ways to endow denoted objects with mythic meanings NEW271Y

  6. Meaning • semiotic analysis assumes that meanings designed to speak to audiences • shape & lend significance to experience of reality NEW271Y

  7. signs & codes work to produce meanings as natural & self-evident • suggest particular ways of seeing self & world NEW271Y

  8. Analysing advertising • 1st separate ads from their normal environment • then ID visual & linguistic signs • see how signs org’d - note how they relate to each other thru coding systems • see what social myths ad draws on – reinforce or challenge? NEW271Y

  9. Semiotic Critique of Ads • step 1: note various signs in ads • a.t. that carries meaning = sign • also connotations – meanings that come from culture • mythic meanings – larger concepts that images rep NEW271Y

  10. to analyse sign, move from denotative to connotative meaning • connotative meanings – ingredients of myth • basic: ID signs, determine social myths from connotations, see how mythic meanings transferred to product • next: ideological function of ad NEW271Y

  11. Ideology in ads • ad constructed in such way that mythic meaning appears automatic, unsurprising • Yet it’s always a product of structure • message communicated by structure of signs • code: particular language or system of signs NEW271Y

  12. The ideology of ads • ads give meanings to products, buyers & readers of ads – also to social world – process • central: way ads address us as readers/consumers • beer, jeans, perfume become indexical signs of soc ID - signify s.t. re consumers NEW271Y

  13. so ads have ideological function: encourage us to view consumption as positive activity that grants us membership in lifestyle groups NEW271Y

  14. NEW271Y

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  16. Multiple Elements • linguistic signs (wds beneath pic) ‘anchor’ meanings of image – control ways of decoding NEW271Y

  17. intertextuality • borrowing signs & meanings from another media text NEW271Y

  18. intertextual reference • targets specific group • positive mythic meanings attained by those who can decode ad NEW271Y

  19. Multiple Possible Meanings • ads can be read diff ways • no single or fixed IDs • sites where several coded meanings overlap & oscillate – don’t need to decide on single meaning NEW271Y

  20. Use of irony • denoted meaning • connoted meaning contradicts denoted meaning NEW271Y

  21. Multiple Meanings • no one correct meaning – not self-contained structure • meanings inflected & altered by intertextual field of other ads • have to factor in social context of ads & of readers • multiple meanings – polysemic NEW271Y

  22. Intermission NEW271Y

  23. Bibliography • J. Cannon, P. O. de Baubeta & R. Warner (eds), Advertising & Identity in Europe: The I of the Beholder (Exeter: Intellect, 2000) • G. Cook, The Discourse of Advertising (London: Routledge, 1992). • G. Dyer, Advertising as Communication (London: Methuen, 1982). • E. Goffman, Gender Advertisements (London: Methuen, 1979). • R. Goldman, Reading Ads Socially (London: Routledge, 1992). • G. Myers, Words in Ads (London: Edward Arnold, 1994). • G. Myers, Ad Worlds: Brands, Media, Audiences (London: Arnold, 1999). • K. Myers, Understains: The Sense and Seduction of Advertising (London: Comedia, 1986). • S. Nixon, Hard Looks: Masculinities, Spectatorship and Contemporary Consumption (London: UCL Press, 1996). • J. Umiker-Sebeok (ed), Marketing and Semiology (Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter, 1987). • T. Vestergaard & K. Shroeder, The Language of Advertising (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985). • R. White, Advertising: What It Is and How To Do It (London: McGraw Hill, 1988). • J. Williamson, Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising (London: Marion Boyars, 1978). • J. Winship, Inside Women’s Magazines (London: Pandora, 1987). NEW271Y

  24. Useful Websites • Emergence of Advertising in America 1850-1920: scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/eaa/search.html • Historical Picture Collections: history.sandiego.edu/gen/documents/clipsources.html • RareAds.com: www.rareads.com • Semiotic Analysis of Images: www.newcastle.edu.au/discipline/fine-art/theory/analysis/semiotic.htm NEW271Y

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