You will be responsible for interpreting the “meaning” of the ad on a number of levels, making full use of the topics we’ve covered in our semiotics, representation, and ideology classes.

You should start your paper with a thesis statement: your argument about what the ad “means.” The rest of the paper will use semiotic analysis to show how the text conveys this meaning, deepening your analysis along the way. You are making an argument and using signs from the text as supporting evidence.

You should move naturally from surface or “denotative” meanings to the larger “connotations” of the ad, with an eye towards uncovering the potential “myths” that the ad is tapping into or furthering and connecting those to ideologies.

You will be graded on your ability to coherently and effectively utilize the analytic terms and concepts introduced in the readings and in class discussion.

The questions below are designed to get you started in your analysis. While you should address all of them, the assignment is not merely to go through them point-by-point. Some of the questions may relate more to your analysis and text than others.

1. Identify and examine the important signs in your text:

• What are the important signifiers? What do they signify? These may include characters, symbols, setting, typeface, logo, shapes, etc.
• What are the primary and secondary discourses used in the ad?
• How are they connected to the denotative and connotative meanings of certain signs, images, and symbols?
• How do the different signs relate to one another?
• What codes do the signs come from? How does your knowledge of codes shape your interpretation?
• What cultural and social meanings are involved? What signs communicate these myths?
• Does this ad interpellate the viewer? And if so, how?

2. Myth:

• What overall meaning do you ascribe to the text as a whole?
• How do the signs and their connotations help to construct a mythic meaning?
• How does the text tap into and reinforce or challenge prevailing social myths or ideas?
• How are the mythic meanings transferred to the product being advertised?
• How does the mythic meaning in the ad relate to our understanding of the “real world” outside the ad?

The paper overall should be making an argument that the ad can be interpreted in a certain way. You are not claiming that this is the only way to interpret the ad, or that this is necessarily what the producers of the ad intended.