Formal Analysis of Advertisement Assignment

In this assignment, you will undertake a formal analysis of an advertisement of your choice with reference to analytic terms and concepts discussed in Week Three of the course. 

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate your ability to explain how your chosen ad communicates particular ideas about the product it sells and the wider society in which it is located. In doing so, you should draw on concepts introduced in the course of our discussions of form, medium specificity, semiotics and ideology in Week Three. 

Your assignment should demonstrate a) your understanding of your chosen concepts by using them to analyse and explain your chosen ad, and b) your ability to unpack how the formal aspects of an advertisement work to create meaning 

In your essay you should: define your chosen terms and concepts; analyse your chosen advertisement using your chosen terms and concepts; support your argument with careful analysis of the formal aspects of the advertisement. 

Please note that the goal of the assignment is NOT to introduce and apply as many concepts as possible, but instead to offer a coherent and well-reasoned analysis. Thus, you may wish to focus on a particular subset of analytic terms and concepts e.g. those associated with semiotics or ideology, to the exclusion of others. 

There is no need for research or references beyond the prescribed readings and lecture videos for the course for Week Three. The purpose of the assignment is to demonstrate your ability to apply the skills and ideas addressed in class, not to seek out additional ideas, or to refer to pre-existing analysis. 

Look to Chapter Three of the textbook for examples of how to carry out such an analysis. 

 Concepts should be drawn from Week Three of the course and include:

• Medium,
• Composition,
• Conventions, 
• Semiotics, 
• Signifier, 
• Signified, 
• Sign, 
• Denotation, 
• Connotation, 
• Anchorage, 
• Mythology, 
• Ideology

Please note that you are not expected to deploy all of these concepts, and that other concepts not mentioned here (but discussed elsewhere in the Week Three material) may be more pertinent to your analysis.   

For the purposes of this exercise, you will be graded on:

• Your ability to introduce and explain key aspects of an analytic framework as relevant to your particular example. 
• Your ability to apply those concepts as part of a thoughtful and precise analysis 
• Your ability to structure a clear and coherent essay with clear, purposeful and error-free writing.