Semiotic Analysis of Print Advertisement for Healthcare Profession - Essay Example

?Semiotic Analysis The image that I have chosen for semiotic analysis is the print advertisement for Recruitment for the Healthcare profession. I have tremendous respect for nurses and in my opinion this is a very good print advertisement. According to Marris and Thornham (1999, p. 18) print advertisement is a form of mass media, and mass media is one that delivers message to a large audience. Marris and Thornham (1999, p. 21) further suggest that mass media have the power to “enforce social norms”, hence the phrase “power of the press”. Thus by making use of print media, the recruiter is also attempting to make use of this power to enforce new thoughts and replace stereotypes. The depth of semiotics can be determined by the impact they have “at the point of consumption” (Eagleton, 1983), so we need to evaluate the explicit cues in light of the context in which they appear. When we look at the purpose of the message we can infer that the it was meant to be delivered to a mass audience at the same time, for this purpose print media or out-of-home media can be very effective (Machin, 2004). The message uses visuals as well as text to attract the attention of a large audience towards the noble profession of nursing. As we perform the semiotic analysis of the image, we infer that the visuals in the image are just the tip of the iceberg; this image delivers a great deal of implicit meaning. Since the advertisement is designed to attract younger audience towards the nursing profession, it effectively makes use of semiotic elements in a very aesthetically pleasing manner to deliver the message. According to Nava, young people today are very perceptual towards advertising, so aside from differentiating the marketing element of an advertisement, treat advertisements as aesthetically pleasing objects (1992, pp 15-21). Signifiers There are a number of signifiers present in this image. The first signifier here is a man wearing green scrubs with a stethoscope around his shoulder. The nurse appears to be a middle-aged man of African origin who has a confident smile on their face. The back ground is blurred so more emphasis can be made on this signifier. The second signifier is a group of four smaller images on the bottom-right side. The images show nurses performing very critical and life-saving duties in healthcare. The nurses in these images are also male. The third signifier is the headline on the top right corner that says “My nurse is a Hero, he saved my life”. The text is written in all-caps in a large font and is in white colour so that it stands out from the image in the back ground. It is also written within inverted commas which show that it is a statement by a person. The fourth signifier is the sub-heading which says “Are you man enough to save a life?” this text is in smaller font and appears at the bottom of the four smaller images. This text too is in white but not in all-caps. It also appears between inverted commas which show that it is a stated question for the audience of the advertisement. The fifth signifier is the logo of the recruiter which appears at the bottom right corner of the image. It is placed in a footer which is blue so that the logo stands out. The Sign The sign in this image is a little complex. To start with when one thinks of the term nurse, almost inevitably the image of a woman appears. On the contrary the term “nurse” is not gender-specific; a nurse could be a man. Another sign in this picture is that although the man is wearing stethoscope around his shoulders and wearing scrubs, we infer from the heading that he is a nurse and not a doctor. Most people relate stethoscopes to doctors and it becomes confusing when nurses are not wearing uniforms to distinguish them. Signified Presently women outnumber men a great deal in the nursing profession. This has little to do with their capabilities or lifestyles and more to do with the stereotypes of the profession. The term “male nurses” is as inappropriate as “female lawyer” or “female doctor” because these are professions but have been subjected to gender-related stereotypes (Cardillo, 2001). Thus the signified in this image is the fact that nurses can be men and the advertisement is designed in a manner to get their attention. Furthermore smaller images showing the activities typically performed by a nurse also show men in each image. The sub-heading also uses the word “man” implying that saving somebody’s life is important and an act of a real hero and that is what counts. So in order to be a real “man” one needs to overcome their societal inhibitions and stereotypes for something more worthwhile—saving someone’s life. The second signified is that the image shows the man dressed in green scrubs and a stethoscope. So in an ER both doctors and nurses are dressed in a similar fashion doing their part of the job at saving lives. Hence for a patient it is the role that they play in saving a life. Stereotyping and Myths It is a very big stereotype that mostly women are nurses and men who work in this profession are usually subjected to such stereotypes. The concept may have evolved during the world war when men fought wars and women took care of the wounded from the battle. The concept took shape at the time of the World War I when US Army Nurse Corps was formed, that year approximately 34000 nurses provided their services (Worell, 2001, p772). Nursing at that time was the dominant role played by women during the war. However under no circumstances is the profession gender-specific. Another misconception is the fact that if a male is nursing profession which requires nurturing characteristics, he is likely to be gay. This is the main reason the advertisement uses the term “man enough”, implying that it is manly to overcome stereotypes and do something worthwhile. Another myth is regarding the actual contribution of nurses in healthcare. Most people perceive that it is the doctors who are the heroes because they do the operations and prescribe medicines. Yes, doctors do these activities because but there is so much more to healthcare than just these two activities. According to Cardillo nurses are often asked questions like “you are so intelligent, why didn’t you become a doctor”, one should highlight that nursing and medicine are related but different professions altogether (2001). The most important service that health care can provide is to alleviate the pain on the patients and to address their concerns. Since nurses are constantly in contact with patients and monitoring their progress they are able to address these issues. This is what makes them heroes too, because without them healthcare industry could not possibly have functioned. Cardillo (2001) further states that : “In general we look at the whole person rather than part of the illness.” Denotation and Connotation The term nurse’s denotation is an individual who serves patients, takes care of them while looking at their health scientifically. However, the connotations attached to the term nurse are several such as, women dressed in white who just do menial work and while the doctors do the significant one. Another denotation is the term “hero” which is a person who serves people and solves their problems. Gender and Interpellation This image uses Interpellation because it instantly aims to grab the attention of its “subject” (Machin, 2004) and introduce them to a new ideology that breaks a lot of stereotypes and myths about the nursing profession. The concept pertaining to production which were engrained into us from childhood are very difficult to alter mainly because they have become a part of our consciousness (Louis, 1970). Thus it is exceedingly difficult to reproduce something that challenges these preconceived notions. The concept of addressing the male gender is very obvious too. The image shows a middle-aged man of African origin. Since the nursing profession is dominated by the female gender, this advertisement aims to attract the other half of the population towards the noble profession. References Althusser, Louis (1970) Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses? in Althusser Lenin. [Online] available at [Accessed 4 March 2012] Cardillo, D. W. 2001. Your first year as a nurse. Google E-book. [Online] available at < http://books.google.com/books?id=jepLoDdTBl0C&pg=PT265&dq=misconceptions+about+nursing+profession&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iiRUT8aEGYqnsAKE5ITwBQ&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=misconceptions%20about%20nursing%20profession&f=false> [Accessed 4 March 2012] Eagleton, Terry (1983). Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. [Chapter 4].  Machin, D. (2004) ?Building the world's visual language: The increasing global importance of image banks in corporate media.? Visual Communication, 3(3), 316.  Marris and Thornham (1999) Media Studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 18-26 Nava & Nava (1992). Discriminating or Duped? Young People as Consumers of Advertising Art‘. Magazine of Cultural Studies. Pp 15-21 Worell, J. 2001. Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender. Elsevier Science and Technology Books. P. 772 Read More