| Pub. Date | : Sept, 2019 |
|---|---|
| Product Name | : The IUP Journal of Soft Skills |
| Product Type | : Article |
| Product Code | : IJSS21909 |
| Author Name | :Sukanya Saha |
| Availability | : YES |
| Subject/Domain | : Management |
| Download Format | : PDF Format |
| No. of Pages | : 11 |
The deep-seated fault-ridden notion of beauty in society has ensued several stereotypes that are detrimental to one’s self-esteem, feel-good factor, sensuality, accomplishment, and so on. The visuals in beauty products advertisements enhancing the overt attributes of the persona being projected, gave birth to an idealistic image with flawlessness, not necessarily endorsed by a person’s genealogy, upbringing or indigenousness. The influence of advertising on a person’s psychosocial and physiological build is extensive. It contributes majorly to the formation of their sense of fulfilment, social acceptance, and adherence to certain social customs and traditions. Obviously, the construct of beauty varies across places and cultures. Hence it needs thinking and meaning-making for an individual to differentiate between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ before being blinded by the ostentatious extravaganza of advertisements. The paper adopts a semiotic approach to analyzing select beauty products ad images. The author aims at deducing how images could act as catalysts in making or marring the viewer’s self-confidence by analyzing visual cues and texts present in the images.
Advertising has witnessed drastic changes, influencing the socio-cultural norms multifariously. Mass-media started playing a decisive role in shaping people’s perceptions about an ‘ideal’ persona, raising quite a stir recently. The recurrence of such prototypes at all instances has wobbled the sense of wellbeing in dusky, wheatish, or rather, dark skin, facial/body hair, short or stout body, and many such trivialities which went mostly unnoticed before advertising boomed and interfered in common man’s life unprecedentedly. Signorelli and Morgan’s research, in the year 1990, supports the contention of enormous influence of mass media on behavior, attitude, beliefs, and ideologies (Signorelli, 1990).