Discourse Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Discourse Analysis - Essay Example These advertisements promote an ideal way of life and manipulate the audience into accepting those ideals as their reality. This analysis intends to break down how agencies have reformed the idea of beauty through countless magazine articles, billboards and other media. They do this by enforcing the stereotype that those beauty products are a better way of life. They send the message that youth is beauty, and that beauty is very important yet they set the bar for beauty so high that clients would always depend on their products. The people behind these advertisements have found ways of controlling peoples’ minds using language in the advertisements. The focus on this study is print advertisements done by Nivea, a company synonymous with the manufacture of beauty products allover the world. They portray a message that they care deeply about the real people and their beauty through their advertisements. Introduction â€Å"Discourse refers to the codes, rules and systems that un der-gird a particular message and thus shapes its meaning and interpretation†. Language is all around us whether written or spoken. It is a core part of our day to day activities and has a profound effect on people and how they behave. This influence is seen in the field of advertising and marketing. Language is employed in these two fields to relay certain messages to the public. Language is used as a tool to not only pass on information about a product but also convince and influence the product choice of the customers. The competition for consumers is very high among product manufacturers. This has led to the revolution of how advertisements are designed. They use not only words but color, pictures and lighting to appeal to the consumer. It is the use of such tools as visual and linguistic means to persuade their audience that has led many a scholar to argue that, â€Å"advertising is the most influential institution of socialization in modern society† (Jhally, 1995) . Cook (2001) points out that advertisements inform, persuade, remind, influence and perhaps change opinions, emotions and attitudes. It is used to emphasize the uniqueness of a product and give reasons why a person should consider it over others already in the market. Advertising can be seen on food packages, billboards, newspapers, magazines, on buses and the Internet just to list a few. This kind of aggressive advertising ensures the audience is aware of a product at all times and remembers it. Advertising is â€Å"any type of form of public announcement intended to direct people’s attention to the availability, qualities and/or cost of specific commodities or services† (Fairclough, 2001). The stakeholders of the products are responsible for what we see in these advertisements. They reserve the power to use advertising to further their goals, good or otherwise. They pick advertising media according to their target audience. Magazines are popular with the youth and a slightly older demographic. The Internet on the other hand is popular with the younger generation. The language and depictions used in advertisements is also influenced by the target population. Advertisements have evolved from direct methods being shouted by mouth to the public in open spaces to being transferred indirectly form of print, videos, audio messages in the radio or sound and video together.