Gender in Fashion Advertising on Social Media: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Approach

Abstract

This study examines digital fashion advertising discourse on social media from a multimodal perspective. The focus is on Facebook clothing posts published by 'H&M' and the effect of gender on determining the semiotic modes used in such advertisements. The data consists of 8 clothing posts for the two genders published by the company on Facebook during (2020-2022). The data were analyzed using Kress and Van Leeuwen's (2006) Visual Grammar paradigm to explore the role of gender in the choice of visual modes employed in these posts. The findings show that digital fashion clothing ads widely involve visual semiotic modes as a tool that creates meaning and enables interaction with the target audiences. The results also indicate that gender is a primary factor in the selection of such visual semiotic resources. In particular, the construction of visual meaning, especially representational and interactive meanings, is different from that in male ads.