Aspects Of TV Advertising In Semiotic View

This thesis ventures to study certain aspects of advertising, TV advertising in the modern consumer society in particular, from a semiotic view supported with some concrete case studies. To complete the mission, it first introduces, some classical semiotic theories including Saussurean semiotics, Pierce’s semiotics, Barthes’ mythology and Baudrillard’s Consumption Culture. In light of this, it tries to explore and interpret the nature and function of the basic elements that constitute the mechanism of TV advertising, such as linguistic signs, non-linguistic signs, celebrity signs and cultural elements, aiming to point out that TV advertising, by taking advantage of the potentialities and combination of different signs, is to attract the audience’s attention and arouse their intention to make the purchase. Apart from persuading the consumer for commercial benefit, ads are also supposed to act as an ideological signs, through which the act of buying represents consuming the referent emotion. Supported by some case studies of Dior perfume, the thesis reveals that the reason why products are important to people in nowadays consumer society does not lie in its use value or exchange value but the meaning of its signs or the symbolic value that makes the product unique and distinguished. Although TV ads tend to create a reality that virtually appears more real than the reality per se, they are still embraced the audience, for what is consumed is not the product in its material sense, but the social value it stands for. In nowadays consumer society, the choice of products is not simply a consumptive activity, but more importantly, a way of living, a choice of individual lifestyle, individual identity and social roles. The thesis thus comes to the conclusion that the study of TV advertising from a semiotic point of view can give us an incisive insight into the functioning of signs behind the mirage created by TV advertising.