The Use of Image in Sport Advertisement from View Point of Semiotics: Case Study on Wrestling Federation of Islamic Republic of Iran

Present study is a semiotics analyses of the advertisements in wrestling federation and an examination of the use of image in such advertisements. The aim of this research is to analyze the advertisements under the semiotics theories and components and also clear what are the properties of advertisements done in related images and posters semantically. The study is qualitative and content analytic based, so 12 cases were selected via targeted sampling among all five hundred topics and news texts which are related images and notifications. At first, the intended advertisement was introduced and then its semiotics components were discussed. The findings show that sport advertisements suffer from a lack of the new, exquisite and innovative ideas, though some good ideas may spark too. The signs applied in wrestling federation are mostly direct, while the audience reach to its concept considering the explicit meaning of signs and implicit meanings of signs that are not understandable. Creating ambiguity and manipulating the signs that are main features of a successful advertisement can be seen rarely in advertisements of this federation.