Advertisements: The Tapestry of Culture

Abstract

Advertising occupies a central place in popular media culture. Advertisements are inseparable part of media streams that people encounter everyday across a wide variety of contexts. This article explores the topic, locating advertisements as texts in theoretical framework of cultural studies. I first provide a summary and overview of key theoretical approach. Secondly, I dwell on the image-making process of discourse and text of advertisements. Thirdly, I take some advertisements from local and global arena and analyse them through the theoretical lens of cultural studies. Finally, I conclude with a brief discussion of some key challenges associated with these texts, their discourse, power structures in these texts for social change. The scope of exploration stretches wide and deep as advertising not only reflects but also shapes culture while culture is living and perpetually evolving. At the same time, my perspective is of course coloured by my own specifications and gender in other words by my own culture.