Abstract
Advertising, popular culture, and meme culture are right within the purview of contemporary semiotic analysis. This chapter looks at all three, employing the semiotic notions of text, subtext, and intertexuality. The latter refers to the parts of an ad text, a popular spectacle, or a meme that are understandable in terms of pre-existing texts. For example, an ad where the shades of light and dark are in tension, suggests many subtexts (meanings) but is also intertextual to other texts where black and white form a contrasting pair. This interweaving of hidden meanings, allusions, and suggestions to other texts is what makes ads, memes, and pop culture generally very powerful emotionally. The chapter also looks at how meaning structures are taking shape in cyberspace.
Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–80)
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Notes
- 1.
Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris: Seuil, 1957).
- 2.
Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris: Seuil, 1957) and Système de la mode (Paris: Seuil, 1967).
- 3.
Cited in Marcel Danesi, Interpreting advertisements: A semiotic guide (Ottawa: Legas Press, 1995), 16.
- 4.
Vance Packard, The hidden persuaders (New York: McKay, 1957).
- 5.
Brian Wilson Key, The age of manipulation (New York: Henry Holt, 1989), 13.
- 6.
This opinion is based primarily on my own experience with advertisers and marketers as a consultant on the meanings that their ads generate and on the kinds of reactions that subjects have to them. This experience has given me a behind-the-scenes look at the whole advertising and marketing business.
- 7.
The concept of cooption was formulated by Thomas Frank , The conquest of cool: Business culture, counterculture, and the rise of hip consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
- 8.
William Leiss, Stephen Kline, Sut Jhally, and Jacqueline Botterill, Social communication in advertising: Consumption in the mediated marketplace, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 2005), 286.
- 9.
Umberto Eco, A Theory of semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), 58.
- 10.
Ken Ashwell, The brain book. (Buffalo: Firefly, 2012), 211.
- 11.
Johan Huizinga, The waning of the Medieval Ages (Garden City, Conn.: Doubleday, 1924), 202.
Bibliography
Ashwell, Ken. 2012. The brain book. Buffalo: Firefly.
Barthes, Roland. 1957. Mythologies. Paris: Seuil.
———. 1967. Système de la mode. Paris: Seuil.
Danesi, Marcel. 1995. Interpreting advertisements: A semiotic guide. Ottawa: Legas Press.
Eco, Umberto. 1976. A theory of semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Frank, Thomas. 1997. The conquest of cool: Business culture, counterculture, and the rise of hip consumerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Huizinga, Johan. 1924. The waning of the Medieval Ages. Garden City: Doubleday.
Key, Brian Wilson. 1989. The age of manipulation. New York: Henry Holt.
Leiss, William, Stephen Kline, Sut Jhally, and Jacqueline Botterill. 2005. Social communication in advertising: Consumption in the mediated marketplace. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
Packard, Vance. 1957. The hidden persuaders. New York: McKay.
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Danesi, M. (2018). There’s More to Perfume than Smell: Advertising, Pop Culture, and Meme Culture. In: Of Cigarettes, High Heels, and Other Interesting Things. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95348-6_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95348-6_10
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