AN EDUCATIONAL INSIGHT OF MEDIA DISCOURSE IN PAKISTANI PRINT ADVERTISEMENTS: A SEMIOTICS STUDY

Media studies has been a significant and trending field in today’s world. It is responsible for prevalent ideologies through different means like news, dramas, movies and advertisements. Advertisements occupy large spheres in any society and to understand them is not an easy task. Semiotics is an area of study of signs which provides ground for understanding the advertisements. In the world of advertisements, ideas are mostly represented through signs, signifiers, signified and their association to the cultural context. The study involves the practical implementation of Barthesian approach using qualitative paradigm and explores the two-fold interpretation of meanings laid in the Pakistani print advertisements. These advertisements are taken from Pakistani magazines and are deeply analyzed using semiotic analysis for obtaining the results. The results reveal that the advertisements hold denotative as well as connotative meanings which are opened to interpretation for a wide audience. It is also disclosed from the study that all the basic elements camouflaged in various layers of the advertisement such as colors, characters and taglines play noteworthy role in generating the meanings