ADVERTISING ASSIGNMENT
Assignment #1
Purpose: To become familiar and comfortable with a specific writing process. We will learn a
series of prewriting techniques that will hone your writing skills. This assignment will introduce
you to the three stages of the writing process- prewriting, drafting, revising- and ways to
incorporate critical thinking into your individual writing process.
Required Reading:
-Jack Solomon “The Semiotic Method”
-Jack Solomon “Masters of Desire”
-Roland Marchand “The Parable of the Democracy of Goods”
-Steve Craig “Men’s Men and Women’s Women”
*Pick advertisements from a magazine or newspaper. Please keep a copy of each ad and
include it in your final draft.
*Cite two sources (from the essays) that relates to your argument
Recommended Reading:
-Introduction: “Brought to You B(u)y: The Signs of Advertising”
-Diane Barthel “A Gentleman and a Consumer”
-Eric Schlosser “Kid Kustomers”
-James B. Twitchell “What Are We to Advertisers”
–-Gloria Steinem “Sex, Lies and Advertising”
Topic:
The seductive and arresting language of advertising is simple yet carefully crafted to separate
consumers from their money. Advertising pervades every aspect of American life to the extent
that its influence has become unavoidable. On what grounds do advertisements appeal to their
audiences? What are the effects of all these ads? What do they tell us about the culture in
which we live? If we employ what jack Solomon calls “the semiotic method,” we can decode the
various signs and cultural myths that are represented in the mass media. To deconstruct a
cultural myth, we must keep two semiotic principles in mind:
1) The meaning of a sign cannot be found in itself but in its relationship (both differences and
similarities) with other signs within a system. To interpret a sign, then, you must determine the
general system (Consumerism, Capitalism, Nationalism, Individualism) in which it belongs.
2) What we call social “reality” is a human construct, the product of a cultural mythology or
value system that intervenes between our minds and the world we experience. Such cultural
myths reflect the values and ideological interests of their builders, not the laws or nature of logic.
Writing Task:
After completing the in-class advertising assignment, use “the semiotic method” to decode an
image, or a series of images, and write an essay in which you analyze a visual ad or set of
