Advertisements are Ideologically Problematic - Literature review Example

Running Head: Advertisements are Ideologically Problematic Name Institution Course Professor Date In analysing an advertisement, the first step involves noting the various signs that an advertisement carries itself. Iconic signs, that is, visual representations and linguistic signs (words) are more often found in advertisements. Graphics, which are non-representational signs, are also found in advertisements. In the first glimpse, most of the signs in the advertisements may simply seem to denote people or the things which the images are representing or as denoting the linguistic signs referents. But in rare occasions do advertisements signs just denote something. Advertisement signs also have meanings, connotations which stem from the society’s culture; some can be consciously recognise easily while others are unconsciously recognised only becoming clear once we start looking for them (Bignell 2002, p.32). Ideologies and the meanings of advertisements are often misrepresented leading to illogical inferences and conclusions by those to whom advertisements were meant to as evident in most ads especially perfume advertisements. This essay discusses the way advertisements are manipulative in its ideologies and the way their meanings and connotations pose problems to the society’s members. A hypothetical example demonstrating how ads meanings and connotations are not recognised easily can be a perfume advertisement which uses a female model picture is not just a sign denoting an individual who has simply been photographed. In this case, the model’s picture is by far also a sign having connotations such as slimness, health, youth, beauty et cetera. This sign can be used as mystified “feminine beauty” signifier. The concept here is derived from the society’s positive myths attributable to positive desirable woman. This advertisement has a sign in the female model’s photograph and some can interpret the meaning of the ad to be the use of the perfume will make one seem beautiful like the ones in the image below. Perfume advertising most prominent features is the strong use of visuals (Tuna & Freitas 2012, p. 96). The pictorial elements are relied heavily on these ads which sometimes do not have any verbal elements in it. Many of the perfume ads are showing precedence of strong visual elements with rather repetitive verbal and textual elements such as exiguous or unvarying. Dictionary.com (2014) defines ideology as a body, belief, myth or doctrine that guides institution, class, social movement, large group or an individual. Different ideological concepts and meanings are inherent in major advertisements. Ideology is a concept which is used in exploring the way ideas diffused through and in most cases imposed on a society by those who control the means and way of power. Advertisement is any form which presents non-personal services, goods or ideas and it is paid by a known sponsor (Shimp 2010, p. 208). One ideological aspect of advertisements is its implied behavioural normalcy. This technique imposes hegemonic norms to the society such as wrinkle free skin, slim body or shiny hair. Advertisements that have implied behavioural normalcy propose that they offer problem reduction as it is mostly use in personal hygiene advertisements. Examples are deodorant and mouthwash ads that capture individuals’ attention by claiming to provide solution to problems affecting the person. Advertisements are paradoxical in its ideologies in a way as it appeals to people individually, individual tastes, and desire for a person to stand tall from the rest by asking individuals to join a particular group. While a lot of advertisements emphasizes individuality based on such concepts of superiority as “unique”, “stand out”, when in the real sense club membership of owners is the main benefit being stressed. There has been a trend where irony and sarcasm are used in advertisements to convey various messages. Irony and sarcasm are used in some advertisements of various commercial products and services. Advertisers chose to use sarcasm and irony in advertisements to act as destabilizing tropes but often than not, it does not bring the intended effects on the audience. In contrast, destabilizing tropes when well interpreted, sometimes leads to heightened advertisements appreciation (Phillips 2000, p. 18). A study by Lagerwerf (2007, p. 1719) found out that sarcastic ads that deal with societal issues in essence showed higher levels of emotional appeal. Positive language use characterised most commercial advertisements. These ads must mention the product positive quality; explaining why positive expressions are frequently used in commercial ads captions than negative ones. In essence, not all ads used publicly uses positive wordings exception being public service announcements and fund-raising campaigns. Advertisements have been in existence for a long time now. Advertising forms an essential part of both cultural and social life textual tapestry. It also plays an important role in the attribution of symbolic meaning to various consumer goods. Advertisements pervasive influence within a society has been viewed by many researchers as constituting a powerful ideological force in the consumer culture (Kelly, Lawlor & O’Donohoe 2005). Advertisements thus can be seen on an ideological base as unethical, oppressive, and corrupt. In the ad below, the message displayed in the advertisement can be viewed by some as unethical and manipulative. The advertising agencies can be viewed in this case as cynical exploiters happy at manipulating and misleading human beings daily. Although advertising agencies are seen by some as exploiters, they nevertheless play an important part to marketing institutions and consumers. They mediate communicative exchanges between marketing institutions and consumers generating commodities symbolic meanings and providing an important link between the marketing institutions and consumption meanings based on culture. The encoding of meanings process by advertising agencies and agency work practitioners is an area that has remain under-explored within the literature of consumer and marketing (Kelly, Lawlor & Donohoe 2005, p.645). Advertisement is a form of communication which is pervasive in nature, that is, it is everywhere and human beings do not choose whether to watch or read hence an inescapable type of communication. Advertisements are powerful both in its reach and ability in communicating its choice of an ideology. Advertisement viewed from a structural perspective can be analysed using two levels, that is, textual and visual. Pictures and texts as a sign in this case have both connonative and denonotative meaning (Er 2013, p. 52). The ideology that is carried in the advertisements is interpreted as society’s skewed image. In essence, it promotes instructions concerning how to look and live. In a plain sense, advertisement images are idealized. It is so because advertisement images are promoting ideal body image and ideal lifestyle. Teenage girls’ perception of themselves is affected by an advertisement image they see on a newspaper, online or watch on television promoting a certain ideal figure of a woman. They will see themselves as outcasts possessing a body image society considers as not ideal. A study by American psychological Association (2007) found out that sexualized images of young women and girls’ proliferation in advertising is harmful to both girls’ human development and self-image. In their examination, the organisation used merchandising products and advertising campaigns that aimed towards girls. Effects of music videos, movies, magazines, television and internet content on published research were also included in the study. Many of ideologies that advertisements promote today are targeting women making young girls vulnerable. The sexualized ideologies promoted by these advertisements affect young women and girls’ physical and mental health, and sexual development. Furthermore, it has emotional and cognitive consequences as it undermine their confidence and comfort with their own body consequently causing emotional and self-image problems in young women and girls such as anxiety and shame (American Psychological Association 2007). Ideologies of these advertisements and their logical positions will then make young girls to define themselves by their physical appearance. Advertisements reinforce norms seeking to make a society static in its reactionary approaches to both gender and status. This is because advertising often relies on many of the society stereotypes. Advertisements techniques used by advertisers are different for both men and women making at times seems that women in general are weak, but in reality the techniques used are making women appear vulnerable. It is a reflection of the negative society that predisposes women to look, act, and behave in a certain manner. This way of behaviour is more and more affirmed as women focused much on these types of adverts that promotes certain ideal bodies women should have. One way of breaking these ideological problems brought by these advertisements is for women to disregard these images and their insecurities and focused more on developing ideal body shapes that they consider themselves fit. Advertisements have a big role in any contemporary society. Although advertising main role is to bridge the gap between marketers and its consumers, it also has a moral role in the society. Its ideologies should be basically centred on instilling society’s cultural values and traditions. Advertising images are powerful tools which are used as social and personal resources by individuals (Brownlie 1999, p. 114). These advertising images and its ideologies have emerged to eclipse traditional ways by which individuals in a society behave and learn. In other words, it seems like traditional structures in the society like family and church have been replaced with advertising communications which teaches on what is acceptable or unacceptable, or what is right or wrong to the society’s members. Advertisements borrow cultural aspects of the constituted world in linking meaning to products it advertises. It then follows that the borrowing process and combination of various cultural aspects does occur hence advertising is inter-textual as it draws various cultural texts in creation of its meaning. The progress being experienced by women despite numerous limitations in the society has not been fully reflected in the popular images we see today. The problem is further complicated by the fact that the media system main objective is profit making through advertisements it runs rather than exposing the gender inequalities in our societies. Despite several decades of feminism, women in advertisements today are being objectified, used in most cases to sell products, instead of being portrayed as complicated and complete human beings (Bailey & Gayle 2008, p. 100). Advertisements perpetuate certain images which distorts the image of women requiring them to adopt certain behaviours that are considered right in the eyes of the society. There is a standard image that is portraying African women as having many children whom she cannot care for them adequately and both the woman and children are hungry. Such representations persist because it has been proved to be powerful tools for marketing of major advertising campaigns (Bailey & Gayle 2008, p. 101). Not only does the African woman have a standard image, it is virtually all the women in the world. Indian woman is portrayed in contemporary times as demure, chaste, and sexually sanitized, which differs from prurient western counterpart (Chaudhuri 2001, p. 374). Ideological concepts present in advertisements today need to be abandoned to bring in a new understanding to the modern woman often misrepresented by these advertisements images. It will also be of great importance in charting a new understanding if assumptions and stereotypes can be abandoned and the ideological constructs demystification through which a “universal woman” is misrepresented as an ideal woman in most images. This challenge will provide a way in which gender inequalities in the society can be analysed which recognizes gender intersection in identity structuring. Not only women are the victims of ideological misrepresentations of advertisements, children too suffer from the vice. United States McDonalds fast food restaurant entices children to eat their food achieved through their ads mainly targeting children. Advertisements of McDonald’s ‘happy meal’ targets children by enticing them with toys when they have their meals at the restaurant. In this scenario, the images in this advert and the messages intended are ideologically not comprehensible to children. McDonald’s restaurant uses different techniques in enticing children to eat its fast food through its various adverts depicting athletes, television characters and movies tie-ins (Mallinckrodt & Mizerski, p.92). The advertisements such as above of the McDonald’s restaurant using cartoon characters are misleading to the children as they have not developed enough knowledge to understand that cartoon characters do not exist in reality. The advertisements ideological representations and expressions are not subjective, isolated, or personal in nature by definition. Rather, ideologies in advertising occupy a public internalized space, which remains subject to public/private dichotomy hidden forces without individuals’ critical reflection or public discourse debate (Bailey & Gayle 2008, p. 107). In rare circumstances does advertising ideological implications are discussed but advertising industry practical aspects are mostly discussed in most advertising texts. Moreover, ideological messages that are inherent in advertisements are left unnoticed by most people. Non-acknowledgement of ideologies in advertisements is not only particular to the government advertisements, but it is manifested in commercial advertisements as well. In order for anyone to understand the ideological concepts of the advertisements, the reasons it was made needs to be appreciated. As pointed out by Rose (2000, p. 186), identification of an advertisement intention is a critical facet of understanding the advertisement meaning. It sometimes becomes a little difficult to determine this because an individual may not have the ability in separating various intentions of advertising agency, client, creative director or any other persons involved in the production process for that matter. The multiple inputs in the process of producing final advertisement may jeopardise the original intention meant by the client. In theory of communication language, disjunction that arises between sender’s intention and effects the advertisement has on the recipient is explained by the communication channel “noise” (Rose 2000, p. 186). Thus, when the receiver of the messages does not clearly understand the messages or it is not understood in a manner it was intended owing to too much noise, the advertising campaigns fails. References American Psychological Association 2007, ‘Sexualisation of Girls’, retrieved 09 May 2014, < http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2007/02/sexualization.aspx>. Bailey, G & Gayle, N 2008, Ideology: structuring identities in contemporary life. University of Toronto Press, North York, Ontario. Bignell, J 2002, Media semiotics: an introduction. Manchester University Press, Manchester. Brownlie, DT 1999, Rethinking marketing: towards critical marketing accountings. Sage, London. Chaudhuri, M 2001, ‘Gender and advertisements: The rhetoric of globalisation’ Women's Studies International Forum, vol. 24, no. 3. Er, M 2013, ‘The Active Role of the Recipient in Decoding an Advertisement Respectively a Poster’, Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences, vol. 70, pp. 52-60. Kelly, A, Lawlor, K & Donohoe, SO 2005, ‘Advertising Ideology and the Encoding of Advertising Meaning: An Ethnographic and Discursive Approach’ Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 32, pp. 645. Lagerwerf, L 2007, ‘Irony and sarcasm in advertisements: Effects of relevant inappropriateness’, Journal of Pragmatics vol. 39, no. 10, pp. 1702-1721. Mallinckrodt, V & Mizerski, D 2007, ‘The effects of playing an advergame on young children's perceptions, preferences, and requests’, Journal of Advertising, vol. 36 no. 2, pp. 87-100. Phillips, BJ 2000, ‘The impact of verbal anchoring on consumer response to image ads’, Journal of Advertising, vol.29, no.1, pp. 15–25. Rose, J. W 2000, Making "pictures in our heads: government advertising in Canada, Praeger Westport, Conn. Shimp, T. A 2010, Advertising, promotion, and other aspects of integrated marketing communications, South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason, Ohio. Tuna, S & Elsa, F 2012, "Gendered adverts: an analysis of female and male images in contemporary Perfume ads’,  Comunicação e Sociedade vol. 21, pp. 95-108. Read More

Dictionary.com (2014) defines ideology as a body, belief, myth or doctrine that guides institution, class, social movement, large group or an individual. Different ideological concepts and meanings are inherent in major advertisements. Ideology is a concept which is used in exploring the way ideas diffused through and in most cases imposed on a society by those who control the means and way of power. Advertisement is any form which presents non-personal services, goods or ideas and it is paid by a known sponsor (Shimp 2010, p. 208). One ideological aspect of advertisements is its implied behavioural normalcy.

This technique imposes hegemonic norms to the society such as wrinkle free skin, slim body or shiny hair. Advertisements that have implied behavioural normalcy propose that they offer problem reduction as it is mostly use in personal hygiene advertisements. Examples are deodorant and mouthwash ads that capture individuals’ attention by claiming to provide solution to problems affecting the person. Advertisements are paradoxical in its ideologies in a way as it appeals to people individually, individual tastes, and desire for a person to stand tall from the rest by asking individuals to join a particular group.

While a lot of advertisements emphasizes individuality based on such concepts of superiority as “unique”, “stand out”, when in the real sense club membership of owners is the main benefit being stressed. There has been a trend where irony and sarcasm are used in advertisements to convey various messages. Irony and sarcasm are used in some advertisements of various commercial products and services. Advertisers chose to use sarcasm and irony in advertisements to act as destabilizing tropes but often than not, it does not bring the intended effects on the audience.

In contrast, destabilizing tropes when well interpreted, sometimes leads to heightened advertisements appreciation (Phillips 2000, p. 18). A study by Lagerwerf (2007, p. 1719) found out that sarcastic ads that deal with societal issues in essence showed higher levels of emotional appeal. Positive language use characterised most commercial advertisements. These ads must mention the product positive quality; explaining why positive expressions are frequently used in commercial ads captions than negative ones.

In essence, not all ads used publicly uses positive wordings exception being public service announcements and fund-raising campaigns. Advertisements have been in existence for a long time now. Advertising forms an essential part of both cultural and social life textual tapestry. It also plays an important role in the attribution of symbolic meaning to various consumer goods. Advertisements pervasive influence within a society has been viewed by many researchers as constituting a powerful ideological force in the consumer culture (Kelly, Lawlor & O’Donohoe 2005).

Advertisements thus can be seen on an ideological base as unethical, oppressive, and corrupt. In the ad below, the message displayed in the advertisement can be viewed by some as unethical and manipulative. The advertising agencies can be viewed in this case as cynical exploiters happy at manipulating and misleading human beings daily. Although advertising agencies are seen by some as exploiters, they nevertheless play an important part to marketing institutions and consumers. They mediate communicative exchanges between marketing institutions and consumers generating commodities symbolic meanings and providing an important link between the marketing institutions and consumption meanings based on culture.

The encoding of meanings process by advertising agencies and agency work practitioners is an area that has remain under-explored within the literature of consumer and marketing (Kelly, Lawlor & Donohoe 2005, p.645). Advertisement is a form of communication which is pervasive in nature, that is, it is everywhere and human beings do not choose whether to watch or read hence an inescapable type of communication.

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