Decoding ideology in advertising

ABSTRACT DECODING IDEOLOGY IN ADVERTISING Banu DA?TAŞ Communication Sciences Anadolu University Social Sciences Institute, i January - 1999 Advisor: Prof.Dr. Ali Atıf BİR The purpose of this thesis is to decode the ideology and value in Turkish print advertising by using semiological analysis. The problem of the study is to decode the which ideologies and values reflect the Turkish print advertising in 1980's and 1990's, when the Turkish society began to evolve into the consumer society. To determine the formats of the advertising texts and the discussion of the articulation of the analyst's in decoding texts are also problem of the study. The methodology of the study is semiological analysis. In the first chapter of the study British Cultural Studies who analyze media products as a text and their understanding of ideology are studied. In the second chapter of the study; Saussure, Levi-Strauss and Barthes are studied whose studies provided the establishment of relationship among language, sign and ideology which are the basis of semiological analysis. In the third chapter of the study the concept of the consumer society, the changing role of the advertising in consumer society and the interaction of the advertising with ideologies, myths and the values are studied. In the fourth chapter of the study the advertising texts are analyzed with semiological analysis which were published in Hürriyet and Milliyet newspapers during the July lst-31st December 1987 and July lst-31st December 1997. According the findings of the study; the reflection of the ivchange in ideologies and values, the values and the ideology of the consumer society are observed in the advertising texts of 1997. The formats of the advertising texts of the 1987 are rational formats which express the qualities of products and services. In advertising texts of 1997, the representation of image values, Life styles and emotions are dominant. In advertising texts of 1997, in addition to this fact, the visual texts are dominant over the verbal texts. The change in the formats of the advertising texts is explained by the fact that the Turkish Society's evolution towards a consumer society and belonging to this fact, the development of the advertising sector. The reflection of the ideologies and values on the advertising texts is explained by the fact that, advertisements are not in vacuum, should be read as a ideological and cultural texts. Analylist's decoding of the advertising texts is the example of Stuart Hall's varied readings. In this study, the audience is not accepted as totally passive agency in case of the media messages. However, it is thought that, the active role of the audience depend on some determinants that are education level, age, sex, ethnicity, religion and the class. In future studies in this field, studying of the varied reading practices of the audience will be useful for the literature.