Analyse the processes of inference required in order to make sense of a particular television commercial.
Guidance
For general guidance about what is expected in your essays for this module, see the general criteria.
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What Key Features Do I Look For?
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Please remember to avoid footnotes and to include an alphabetical list of 'References' which have been cited in the text (not a Bibliography of anything you have read for the essay). This list should include author's names, date, book titles (in italics), place of publication and publisher. Within the text always cite author's surname, date and page number. Double-space your text and number your pages. For more detailed notes on writing essays in this department, click here.
Advice for this particular assignment: Choose a particular television commercial (preferably no more than 30 seconds and with minimal words). Start by doing a shot-by-shot summary as an appendix: this doesn't count towards the word-count, and it will save you including a full denotative summary in the main body of the essay. After a brief introduction, work your way through the shots, trying to explain everything you need to know in order to understand each shot. In what ways do you go need to go beyond what you are explicitly told or shown in the ad in order to make sense of it? Devise some questions of your own, but here are some to start you off:
In practice, you can't describe everything that you need to know in order to understand even a 30-second ad - at least not in a 2500 word essay! For instance, your 'how do you know?' answers could probably lead to more 'how do you know?' questions. Pick on a good range of illustrative points rather than pretend to be comprehensive. Give priority to the points that might leave the reader thinking, 'Oh Yes! I hadn't even thought of that!' (rather like Gombrich does when he discusses the Pioneer plaque). Note in the essay that you could have mentioned many more things you would need to know. To keep within the word limit, avoid repetition of points already made regarding earlier shots.
One major kind of knowledge that is used extensively in interpreting both the world and texts is knowledge of 'stock situations' (both in everyday life and in representational media). In making sense of any text we draw on both knowledge of the world and knowledge of the medium, so you can broadly divide the questions into these two kinds. What social knowledge (knowledge of the world and of how things usually are) and representational (or textual) knowledge (knowledge of the medium/genre/technique) do you draw on in making sense of this ad? Try to think as you might if you were an alien being who had just found the Pioneer space-probe's plaque, and recall Gombrich's critique of it. If you find that too difficult, imagine someone very young or from a very different culture on Earth and what problems they might face in making sense of it.
To illustrate how some of your inferences are based on information from other texts, you could include a few examples of some images (people, situations, etc.) from such texts which are very similar to some of those in the chosen ad.
Either in your introduction or conclusion you can explain (with reference to academic sources) why inference is so important in making sense of the world and of texts in any medium. Note that texts cannot be said to infer: texts (or more strictly their authors) may 'imply'; audiences 'infer'. Texts have implications; audiences make inferences. You are welcome to check your own inferences against those of some friends. As I have repeatedly argued, the meaning is not 'within' the text (although on the other hand the text can't mean whatever we want it to mean). Your approach needs to be an appropriate blend of psychology and semiotics within the context of advertising.
Key psychological issues
In the words of the famous psychologist Jerome Bruner (1957), in making sense of
both texts and the world we have to 'go beyond the information given'.
Psychologists refer to schema theory (not 'the schema theory', by the way).
'Schemata' (or 'schemas') are mental templates or frameworks which we use to interpret phenomena.
Schemata enable us to make inferences in order 'to go beyond the information given'.
Psychologists divide these into social schemata and textual schemata.
You may find
it useful to consult my online notes on
Schema Theory and the Interpretation of
Television Programmes.
Remember that perception involves both 'top-down' processes
(hypotheses and expectations derived from schemata) and 'bottom-up' (sensory data-driven) processes. Note that, based on which of these processes theorists
tend to give most weight to, there are theoretical differences about the extent to which 'perception' can be separated from what others would
regard as a higher-level processes of 'interpretation'. We make inferences about:
In the case of your chosen commercial, what examples of these kinds can you identify and what kind of inferences do they generate? In exploring differences between viewer interpretations you may find the following links useful:
Key semiotic issues
Semioticians emphasise that even visual texts require 'reading' or 'decoding' -
the text needs to be related to relevant codes. Just as the psychologists refer to textual and social schemata, semioticians refer to textual and
social codes. Try to establish what codes viewers need to draw on in order to make sense
of the example you discuss. I argue that
we also need to make inferences about the modality status of texts, comparing textual and social scenarios, evaluating
purposes, plausibility, truth and so on. The semiotic concepts of denotation and connotation are relevant here. What is denoted is the 'obvious' or
'literal' representation (in an image it is what is depicted): most people would agree broadly about what is denoted.
What is connoted (connotation) is much more variable from individual to individual (though such interpretations overlap).
This is turn is related to the issue of what is
explicit (requiring less inference) and what is implicit (requiring considerable inference). On the issue of connotation and denotation
see the commentary in my semiotics book.
Key advertising issues
Robert Goldman comments that 'More than any other mass media form,
ads are shaped to accomplish preferred interpretations', implying that they are often less open to interpretation than many other kinds of texts.
However, some modern commercials are very subtle, ambiguous and even impenetrable to those outside their target market. Nevertheless,
an example that does not seem to require much 'reading' can demonstrate that even these require people to draw on
both textual knowledge and social knowledge. In the psychology of advertising, theorists often refer to the 'Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion' and
the so-called 'central' and 'peripheral' routes. In this framework, the central route (often described as rational)
consists of persuasion via the explicit information in the ad, and the
peripheral route (often thought of as primarily emotional) includes what is merely implicit in the ad. Inference-making tends to be associated with
the central route (rational claims etc.) but inferences are also involved in the peripheral route (e.g. emotional associations).
Note that your essay should be at least as concerned with inference as it is with advertising issues.
You may find it useful to look at my notes on the famous 1985 'Laundrette' commercial for Levi 501s at: http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Modules/FM34120/launderette.html
As well as a full shot-by-shot (as an Appendix), your essay is likely to benefit from the inclusion within the main body of the text of carefully selected stills: these can help you to make a point.
Some suggested reading
Note: Treat with extreme caution sources labelled with this symbol!
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