“Textual Analysis Is Limited When It Comes to Studying the Relationship Between Media Industries, Governments and Consumers. Other Approaches to the Media Are Also Necessary.”

Advertisements are all around us. In our daily routines we are constantly dealing with advertisements whether we are conscious about it or not. As an audience, we are interacting with advertisements via the media in some form or another. One particular example is television commercials. But to understand the affects advertisements have on society as a whole, researchers have adopted two different methodologies with two different approaches; Textual Analysis and Critical Political Economy.

Textual analysis is an approach which focuses more on the text. It deals with how interpretation of the text works; how audience members come to understand the text and how meaning is made. McKee (2001, p.140), suggests texts can be in any form, for instance radio programmes, television programmes, films, newspapers, magazines etc, and if we want to understand the role that the media play in our lives and precisely how its messages participate in the cultural construction of our view of the world then we have to understand what meanings audiences are making of the different variety of texts.

As soon as we describe a programme, magazine or book as a ‘text’, we are implying a certain approach to it, and a certain way of making sense of it, including the fact that we do not think it has a single correct interpretation. We know that every television programme, film or magazine article can be interpreted in many different ways by viewers. For instance ‘wipe off 5’ commercials by TAC (Transport accident commission), viewed by different groups of people would interpret the commercial differently. Some audiences may find the adoption of   ‘shock tactics’ inappropriate as the images are too graphical, others may think the commercial is great because it depicts reality and creates awareness for drivers at all ages. These are only a few interpretations conducted within my family and there may be a vast majority of people that have different views to what has been said. But the... [continues]

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