27/07/13 Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements - TEACHING MEDIA

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Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements

I’ve found Judith Williamson’s Decoding Advertisements incredibly useful for introducing students to semiotics,

ideology and subjectivity, as well as the critical study of advertising. I usually use Chapters One and Two.

Students find the reading to be challenging, but I help them out a bit with this handout, which is my breakdown

of her key points about advertising, subjects, and ideology.

How Advertising/Ideology Works/Means through Subjects:

Four processes discussed by Judith Williamson

We create the meaning of the ad/ Currency of Signs: Our unconscious linking of products, images, and emotions

produces the meaning of the ad. The currency of signs does not exist without our active and desiring minds that

complete transactions, transfer meanings and values between signs. The ad draws on existing referent systems—

shared cultural codes, sign systems, and conceptual maps—to construct its meaning, and we in turn draw on

these referents system to interpret and create the ad’s meaning. In order to expose the ideological work of an

ad, you must be able to make conscious the unconscious links the ad asks us to make; in other words, you must

be able to analyze the specific currency of signs and the particular transfers of meaning that subjects must enact

in order for the ad to successfully complete its ideological work.

We are created by the ad/ Interpellation: The ad interpellates us; it “hails” us into its meaningful world by

offering a subject position within the ideological system of the ad. When we are interpellated, we exchange our

self with the subject position created by the ad. The paradox of the interpellation performed by advertisements

is that it attempts to turn a mass of concrete individuals into ideological subjects of the ad by addressing them as

unique and individual agents who freely choose.

We create ourselves in the ad/ Identification and Misrecognition: The ad offers the subject a mirror image with

which to identify that is constructed out of various signifiers. This image becomes a symbol through which the

subject can experience an imaginary, illusionary feeling (a misrecognition) of self-sameness, of unity. We desire

to be this image, to complete and create ourselves through the image, because we lack something that it

proclaims to have. Ads actively construct lack; they produce the space for our desire and simultaneously promise

its fulfillment.

We take meaning from the ad/ Totemism and Social differentiation: Once we have created the meaning, we take

this meaning with us; it sets our relationships to other people and/or groups of people. Just as ads create

differentiation between their product and others like it, they create social differentiation between groups of

people. Ads encourage us align ourselves with—and differentiate ourselves from— others based on our what we

buy. Ads ask us to think about our social world—our relationship to it and to others—in terms of individual

consumption and not in relation to the social processes of production (who made it and under what

conditions,etc.).

I ask students to use Williamson to conduct their own critical reading of an advertisement in the form of an oral,

in-class presentation. Here are the guidelines:

Advertising Analysis

(10 points total)

Your presentation should be exactly 8 minutes. I am very serious about this requirement and will deduct points

from your final score if you are significantly (more than 30 seconds) over or under time. Therefore, you should

rehearse several times before presenting to the class.

You must bring your advertisement to class. Make copies (black and white) for your classmates if you feel it will

enhance your presentation. Throughout your presentation, you should refer directly to the text in order to help

your classmates follow your argument. You may want to have another classmate hold the advertisement and

assist in pointing out relevant aspects of the text during your presentation. However, any collaboration of this

nature should be rehearsed and well planned.

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27/07/13 Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements - TEACHING MEDIA

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Your presentation should be formal and expository. You may read directly from a prepared manuscript.

You must actively and effectively engage with the theoretical concepts discussed in our course readings. Most

important here are those concepts discussed by Williamson: ideology, subjects, interpellation,

identification/desire, and signification (signifiers/signifieds/referent systems).

Grading Guidelines

Your oral presentation counts 10 points towards your final score. I will grade your presentation according to

the following criteria:

Presentation (2 points): your delivery and overall performance (time, clarity, eye contact, organization, etc.)

Analysis (4 points): your reading of specific elements of the advertisement

Theory (4 points): your engagement with and demonstrated understanding of our theoretical concepts from

Williamson

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