An Introduction to Application of Semiology in Analyzing Advertising Messages; Case Study of Newspaper Advertisements

The theory of semiology as a scientific approach in the field of cultural studies offers an efficient device in analyzing advertising messages for the researchers. Advertising in all its dimensions such as commercial advertisements uses several visual techniques and attempts to use the most appropriate way of delivering the message of the seller of product/service. Semiology not only offers techniques for strengthening advertising messages, but also assists in discovering the concealed meaning system or covert value system in advertisements. This article attempts to notice applications of semiology theory in analyzing advertising messages; and the article, in the form of studying several instances of printed commercial advertisements, works on their technical and cultural dimensions. The main focus of this article is on the necessity of understanding several dimensions and outputs of commercial advertisements such as economic, social, and cultural in a multi-dimensional system, which can have several applications for advertisers, producers of advertising messages and even policy-makers in the field of commercial advertisements. Several functions of commercial advertisements and categorizing them are among the issues which facilitate the main framework of this article, i.e semiological analysis of Williamson on commercial advertisements. In the end, cultural indications of commercial advertisements are propounded.