LOVE MONITORING: ANALYSIS OF VALENTINE’S DAY ADVERTISEMENTS

Abstract

Modern consumers consume signs rather than the product itself. Consumed one is the life surrounded by images rather than the actual use value or benefit of the product. Consumption also gives us the reality of life. The thing that provides the commonality related to the signs in communication is participatory social life which allows people to gain similar life experiences. Evaluations about people, objects, feelings and thoughts within this social life may contain similar acceptances and may present social insights to us. A sign is a fairly simple thing that has a special meaning for a person or group of people. It is not a thing itself, nor a sense; they are both together.

All communication works, especially advertisements that brands conduct in creation of meaning regarding consumption play a role. However, the interaction here is not one-sided; it is mutual. Insights about human, in other words, human truths are reflected in brand communications and the people who are exposed to these communications are influenced by their own reality. A large part of the signs built by the brands advertisements are related to gender, roles of men and women and their relationships. Individual integrates his/her gender identity which is gained through birth and the relationship form s/he establishes with the opposite sex with the features gained as a result of his/her social life. Thus, s/he makes interpretation related to sex and relationships they have as woman or man with common values and beliefs of society in which s/he is. It should be added that television and advertisement contribute to the learning of gender within social life. Examination of how woman and man’s roles and their relationship forms are represented gives an idea about human and social realities about the subject. In order to understand and identify consumers, it is necessary to put forward the meaning in deep structure, to read advertisements and to describe signs. In semiotic analysis, researcher is concerned with the description of perceptions, not with the description of reality. In other words, while resolving texts and messages, a semiotician is concerned with the whole interpretations constituting contexts which are diversified with different expectations, experiences of the recipients, and their motives. However, to be able to analyse the reflections of social background also makes a contribution to the description of consumer.

In this study, a section will be taken from advertisements in which specifically love and male-female relationships and their relationship understandings are represented and semiotic analysis will be applied to it within the context of gender and popular culture. Television advertisements with the content of Valentine's Day broadcasted in Turkey in the last decade will be analysed with the method of semiotics and reflections of representations of male-female roles, love and relationships in a wide cross-section of time will be interpreted. In addition, findings of semiotic analysis will be analyzed with the method of content analysis. The study is in a struggle for putting forth the conversions in understanding of advertising in that it analyses a case and the section of a period.

Key Words: Advertisement, Gender, Valentine’s Day.