Interpreting advertisements with semiotic content analysis

This presentation aims to demonstrate the usefulness of combining semiotics with content analysis in the interpretation of advertising messages. In particular, the presentation will lay out fundamental methodological guidelines that underpin semiotic analysis in two different schools of thought and the areas in which they are consonant or dissonant with fundamental principles of content analysis.  The presentation will focus on how to segment advertising messages, how to look for markers of textual coherence in advertising messages, how to code advertising messages and how to interpret them as meaningful expressive units of a brand’s semantic nucleus. Furthermore, emphasis will be laid on sources of ambiguity in the interpretive process that may contribute to brand image dilution, both during the encoding and the decoding phases of advertising messages. It will be argued that content analysis is an indispensable tool in any semiotic interpretive process, however its function in a methodological toolbox is more that of an enabler, rather than the driving force behind an interpretive endeavor. The presentation will guide the audience through the analytical process step-by-step, by drawing on an actual case-study, and is oriented towards stimulating discussion about the merits of this combined approach.

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George Rossolatos – Semiofest 2013 presentation– George Rossolatos holds the copyright of this presentation.