Cultural Context & Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Cultural Context & Design - Essay Example f the ad design, not only can the careful observer learn much about the company, but can also assess how the advertisement is impacting or contributing to the general thought and behavior of society. This examination of the signs of a given advertisement is what Roland Barthes referred to as semiotic analysis. This process of looking at an advertisement for its deeper cultural meanings and associations enables us to gain a better understanding of the relationship that develops between the product or the advertiser and the viewer or consumer. After examining a little bit about what Roland Barthes meant by semiotic analysis, this process will be applied to two advertisements as an illustration of the process. Roughly speaking, semiotics refers to the process of analyzing the ‘signs’ of a given culture for indications of meaning at varying levels. â€Å"Semiology therefore aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification† (Barthes, 1964). Perhaps appropriate to the application of semiotic analysis to the field of advertising, philosopher Umberto Eco refers to it as â€Å"a discipline for studying everything which can be used in order to lie† (1976). Thus, it refers to language, image, color, shape, expression, placement and a number of other contextual clues that combine together in some unique way so as to convey a sense of meaning to a particular cultural group. To discuss these various elements, Barthes and other s have provided us with specific terms that help to keep things within an understandable framework. The primary elements that will be concentrated on in this study include signifiers, signified and sign. The sign is the compound element formed by the signifier and the signified. The signifier is