The IUP Journal of Soft Skills
A Semiotic Analysis of Select Beauty Products Ad Images and Their Impact on Self-Confidence

Article Details
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

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Abstract

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.


Description

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).


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