Decoding Advertisements by Judith Williamson

Author:Judith Williamson [Judith Williamson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780714522708
Publisher: Marion Boyars
Published: 2012-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

With calligraphy, the advertisement reaches a final point in its imaginary joining of sign and referent. The analyses in this section attempt to show what ideological function this can serve. But there is a further point to be made. The organisation of the material in the ad, the chocolates in the ‘Weekend’ example A57, is according to what can be termed a ‘Referent System’ (to distinguish it from the referent of the sign). The arrangement SATSUN appeals to our pre-existent knowledge of the forms taken by language itself. SATSUN is a simple puzzle whose shape produces its solution: it means the weekend. Part Two looks at the way in which the subject’s knowledge is appropriated by advertisements, in their appeal to major Referent Systems, like nature or time. These are systems of meaning that can be used, referred to by ads, just as language refers to objects which are what it ‘means’ or represents (—and these two different things are confused in ideology, which makes reference do for meaning). Language is the meta-referent system, a structure of denoting signifiers, while other referent systems are structures of connoted meanings. In calligraphy we have seen how language provides a structure for referent systems while these systems themselves provide structures of meaning that flow through the elements from them as structured by the ad. Advertisements structure outside elements, while in calligraphy, language structures elements within it, like sweets. This shows that the meaning is literally in the structure; language provides not a system of inherent meanings but a system of relations that can carry meaning (in the Weekend ads, this is the product). Similarly, advertisements use already existing structures of relations filled with a new meaning—the product. In Calligraphic ads the structure (language) is very clearly refilled by the ad’s own meaning, which is the product, but this is simply an exceptionally clear case of what all ads do. They work an exchange between meaning and system using structures of relations hinted at by elements from them (e.g. Catherine Deneuve suggests the whole system of the world of chic) but once these structures have been evoked they are used purely structurally (to create differences)—and so there is a permanent robbery, of materiality from structures and of structures from their material. Symbolic structures come to replace and confuse our perception of the real structure of society.

1 In Afterimage No. 5, Spring 1974, p. 27.

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