CORE COURSE ESSAY COVER SHEET FULL NAME STUDENT NUMBER CONTACT NUMBER COURSE CODE TOPIC DUE DATE TUTOR/SEMINAR LEADER Plagiarism Declaration I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use anothers work and pretend that it is ones own.
I have used the Harvard convention for citation and referencing. Each contribution to, and quotation in this essay from the work(s) of other people has been acknowledged through citation cited and referenced. This essay is my own work. I have not allowed, and will not allow, anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work. I have done the word processing and formatting of this assignment myself. I have used a spell and grammar check with a UK language setting before submitting the essay. I have double-checked all proper names and references.
Signature _____________________________ Date_________________ (The cover page consists of 156 words) SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF AN ADVERTISEMENT Advertising is very big in South Africa, according to the Business plan article (n.d.), media and advertising in South Africa spent over 23 billion on advertising since 2007.Advertisements have become a part South Africans lives as they see them each and every second of the day, whether it is through television, magazines, and radio.This is why advertisements have an influence in their decisions.This essay will first focus on the reinforcement of hegemonic representation by the advertisement given,this includes gender, race, class.
The essay also consists of definitions and applications of concepts on semiotics, ideology, hegemony, as well as gender and race politics. The advertisement has women before and after taking a shower using Dove body wash. The focus is mainly on women as if it is only women who want to look beautiful and also have clear skin.Media and advertising has portrayed women as humans who are allowed to look beautiful and men are expected to be muscular.Men are left out in this advertisement,the target market or audience is obviously women.This is something that men always face when it comes to beauty products,is beauty something that is only meant for women.
No there are a lot of men out there who like to take care of themselves, I dont use make up, though I know there are men who secretly or openly use makeup daily, and that shouldnt be a problem. I do not judge what others choose to use on their bodies., said Siphiwe Mpye when he was interviewed by Sunday Times on the 30th of July 2017. On the other hand they cannot really blame beauty products companies because they are faced with the challenge of men in Africa who do not want to buy beauty products.The main reason among the black community could because they still have that mentality that they are only for women.There is an IsiXhosa proverb which says Ubuhle bendoda zinkomo zayo,this means the beauty of a man is his wealth(cows). The issue of race is also visible in the advert as there are three women of different races, the before part has a dark or black woman and the after part has a white woman.
It is clear that the advertiser thinks dark skin is dirty or not beautiful and one needs to use dove body wash in order to have light or white skin.The brand also has an advertisement that shows a black woman who takes off her shirt, and after bathing with dove she becomes a white woman.A lot of people commented on social media including Minister Nathi Mthethwa,We strongly condemn this racist campaign by dove and note with concern that this is not the first time theyve been called out for racism(N.Mthethwa October 8,2017). Big brands seem to be offending a lot of people with their advertisements,for example, the recent incident of HM.
They forget that race is still a sensitive issue in the country.This leads to consumers or citizens of a country to boycott them because they are not even South African owned. Class is also visible, which is upper and maybe middle class.The advertisement has words such as shower, this clearly shows that lower class people are not the target market or audience.The women on the advertisement look like people who are well off when it comes to finances.
The reason behind this might be that lower class people do not care about what the product will do for them, because the last thing they want to do is to spend money on something expensive whereas they could have bought a substitute for that which is cheap soap. Y, B8L 1(IzZYrH9pd4n(KgVB,lDAeX)Ly5otebW3gpj/gQjZTae9i5j5fE514g7vnO( ,[email protected] /[email protected] 6Q
