Conducting Multimodal Rhetorical Analysis of TV Ads with Atlas.ti 7
-
George Rossolatos
George Rossolatos is an academic researcher and marketing practitioner, with experience in advertising (JWT), marketing research (Research International/Millward Brown) and brand management (Colgate-Palmolive, Nestle, Weetabix and Cosmote). He holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from the University of Essex, an MSc in Marketing from Manchester Business School and an MBA from Strathclyde Business School and a PhD in Marketing Semiotics from the University of Kassel. He is also the editor of the
International Journal of Marketing Semiotics (http://ijmarketingsemiotics.com/). Major publications includeInteractive Advertising: Dynamic Communication in the Information Era (2002),Brand Equity Planning with Structuralist Rhetorical Semiotics (2012, 2014),Applying Structuralist Semiotics to Brand Image Research (2012),//rhetor.dixit//: Understanding ad texts’ rhetorical structure for differential figurative advantage (2013), plus numerous articles in trade and academic journals. His research interests rest with effecting inter-textual cross-fertilizations between marketing, rhetoric and semiotics discourses, also informed by disciplines such as phenomenology, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, anthropology, communication theory and cultural studies.
Abstract
This paper lays out the steps involved in the process of analyzing the rhetorical structure of TV ads with the employment of the content analytic software Atlas.ti 7. By drawing on a corpus of 87 TV commercials from brands that make up the world’s most valuable brands according to WPP’s BrandZ 2012 report and a resulting pool of 561 ad filmic segments, it will be shown (i) how TV ads may be segmented, (ii) how individual segments may be coded with one or more verbo-visual rhetorical figures in the light of three distinctive levels of analysis (on an intra-segment level, between two succeeding segments, against the background of an ad film’s “global semantic structure”) and (iii) how statistical output pertaining to the rhetorical structure of TV ads may be produced. This technically oriented analysis, which is part of ongoing research in the field of multimodal advertising rhetoric (cf. Rossolatos 2013a, 2013b, 2013c), is intended to contribute to scholarly research about the benefits that stem from combining an interpretive approach to the analysis of ads’ rhetorical configuration that is edified on film semiotics, with a quantitative approach, enabled by the employment of the content analytic software Atlas.ti 7.
About the author
George Rossolatos is an academic researcher and marketing practitioner, with experience in advertising (JWT), marketing research (Research International/Millward Brown) and brand management (Colgate-Palmolive, Nestle, Weetabix and Cosmote). He holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from the University of Essex, an MSc in Marketing from Manchester Business School and an MBA from Strathclyde Business School and a PhD in Marketing Semiotics from the University of Kassel. He is also the editor of the International Journal of Marketing Semiotics (http://ijmarketingsemiotics.com/). Major publications include Interactive Advertising: Dynamic Communication in the Information Era (2002), Brand Equity Planning with Structuralist Rhetorical Semiotics (2012, 2014), Applying Structuralist Semiotics to Brand Image Research (2012), //rhetor.dixit//: Understanding ad texts’ rhetorical structure for differential figurative advantage (2013), plus numerous articles in trade and academic journals. His research interests rest with effecting inter-textual cross-fertilizations between marketing, rhetoric and semiotics discourses, also informed by disciplines such as phenomenology, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, anthropology, communication theory and cultural studies.
Appendix
The corpus of ad films that was employed in this study
References
Armstrong, S. (2010). Persuasive Advertising: Evidence-Based Principles. London: Prentice-Hall.10.1057/9780230285804Suche in Google Scholar
Atlas.ti 7 Manual. Available: http://www.atlasti.com/uploads/media/atlasti_v7_manual_201301.pdfSuche in Google Scholar
Barthes, R. (1977). Image-Music-Text. London: Fontana.Suche in Google Scholar
Bateman, J. (2007). Towards a grande paradigmatique of film: Christian Metz reloaded. Semiotica, 167(1/4):13–64.Suche in Google Scholar
Bellour, R. (2000). Analysis of Film. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Bezemer, J. and Mavers, D. (2011). Multimodal transcription as academic practice: a social semiotic perspective. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 14(3):191–206.Suche in Google Scholar
Bordwell, D. and Thompson, C. (2008). Film art: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill.Suche in Google Scholar
Bulmer, S. and Buchanan-Oliver, M. (2006). Visual rhetoric and global advertising imagery. Journal of Marketing Communications, 12(1):49–61.Suche in Google Scholar
Chatman, S. (1980). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Denzin, N. K. and Guba, E. G. (1998). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In: The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, N. K.Denzin and Y. S.Lincoln(Eds.), 195–220. London: Sage.Suche in Google Scholar
Durand, J. (1970). Rhétorique et image publicitaire. Communications15, 70–95.10.3406/comm.1970.1215Suche in Google Scholar
Durand, J. (1987). Rhetorical figures in the advertising image. In: Marketing and Semiotics: New Directions in the Study of Signs for Sale, J. Umiker-Sebeok (Ed.), 295–318. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Suche in Google Scholar
Figueroa, S. K. (2008). The grounded theory and the analysis of audio-visual texts. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 11(1):1–12.Suche in Google Scholar
Fontanier, P. (1977). Les figures du discours. Paris: Flammarion.Suche in Google Scholar
Friese, S. (2012). Qualitative Data Analysis with Atlas.ti. London: Sage.10.4135/9781529799590Suche in Google Scholar
Goddard, A. (1998). The Language of Advertising. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Gonzalez, M. de L. A. (2012). A reappraisal of lexical cohesion in a conversational discourse. Applied Linguistics (Advance access, published Sep122012):1–24.Suche in Google Scholar
Groupeµ.. (1970). Rhétorique générale. Paris: Larousse.Suche in Google Scholar
Groupeµ.. (1992). Traité du signe visuel: Pour une rhétorique de l’ímage. Paris: Seuil.Suche in Google Scholar
Gunning, Tom. (2003). The work of film analysis: systems, fragments, alternation. Semiotica, 144(1/4):343–357.Suche in Google Scholar
Hackley, C. (1998). Social constructionism and research in marketing and advertising. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 1(3):125–131.Suche in Google Scholar
Hackley, C. (2001). Marketing and Social Construction: Exploring the Rhetorics of Managed Consumption. New York: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Housley, W. and Smith, R. J. (2011). Telling the CAQDAS code: membership categorization. Discourse Studies, 13(4):417–434.Suche in Google Scholar
Huhmann, B. A. (2008). A model of the cognitive and emotional processing of rhetorical works in advertising. In: Go Figure: New Directions in Advertising Rhetoric, E. F.Mc Quarrie and Barbara J.Phillips(Eds.), 85–113. New York: M. E. Sharpe.Suche in Google Scholar
Hwang, S. (2008). Utilizing qualitative data analysis software: a review of Atlas.ti. Social Science Computer Review, 26(4):519–527.Suche in Google Scholar
Kolln, M. (1999). Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Suche in Google Scholar
Lemke, J. (2009). Multimodal genres and transmedia traversals: social semiotics and the political economy of the sign. Semiotica, 173(1/4):283–297.Suche in Google Scholar
McQuarrie, E. and Mick, D. G. (1996). Figures of rhetoric in advertising language. Journal of Consumer Research, 22:424–437.Suche in Google Scholar
McQuarrie, E. and Mick, D. G. (2009). A laboratory study of the effect of verbal rhetoric versus repetition when consumers are not directed to process advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 28(2):287–312.Suche in Google Scholar
McQuarrie, E. and Phillips, B. (2004). Beyond visual metaphor: A new typology of visual rhetoric in advertising. Marketing Theory, 41(2):113–136.Suche in Google Scholar
Metz, C. (1974). Language and Cinema: Approaches to Semiotics. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110816044Suche in Google Scholar
Miles, M. B. and Huberman, M. A. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis. London: Sage.Suche in Google Scholar
Neuendorf, K. A. (2002a). The Content Analysis Guidebook. London: Sage.Suche in Google Scholar
Neuendorf, K. A. (2002b). The Content Analysis Guidebook (online). Available: http://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/content/index.htmSuche in Google Scholar
Pan, S., Chon, K. and Song, H. (2008). Visualizing tourism trends: a combination of Atlas.ti and BiPlot. Journal of Travel Research, 46:339–348.Suche in Google Scholar
Pelerman, C. and Olbrechts-Tytetca, L. (1971). The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. London: Notre Dame Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Philips, B. J. (1997). Thinking into it: consumer interpretation of complex advertising images. The Journal of Advertising, XXVI(2):77–87.Suche in Google Scholar
Philips, B. J. and McQuarrie, E. (2002). The development, change and transformation of rhetorical style in magazine advertisements 1954–1999. Journal of Advertising, XXXI(4):1–13.Suche in Google Scholar
Riffe, D., Lacy, S., and Ficko, F. G. (2005). Analyzing Media Messages: Using Quantitative Content Analysis in Research. New Jersey: LEA.Suche in Google Scholar
Rossolatos, George (2012). Repressenting the manimal: a semiotic/psychoanalytic approach to the strategic importance of anthropomorphism in branding. In: Proceedings of the 12th International Marketing Trends Conference, Paris, 17–19 2013. Available:http://www.marketing-trends-congress.com/archives/2013/pages/PDF/769.pdf10.2139/ssrn.1999716Suche in Google Scholar
Rossolatos, G. (2013a). On the pathology of the enthymeme: accounting for hidden visual premises in advertising discourse (forthcoming in Signs & Society).10.1086/674417Suche in Google Scholar
Rossolatos, G. (2013b). An anatomy of the verbo-visual rhetorical landscape of the world’s most valuable brands. International Journal of Marketing Semiotics, I: 73–125. Available: http://ijmarketingsemiotics.com/journal-contents-2/10.2139/ssrn.2251819Suche in Google Scholar
Rossolatos, G. (2013c). Rhetorical transformations in multimodal advertising texts: from general to local degree zero. Hermes: Journal of Language and Communication in Business, 50:1–22.10.2139/ssrn.2054894Suche in Google Scholar
Rossolatos, G. (2014). Brand Equity Planning with Structuralist Rhetorical Semiotics. Kassel: Kassel University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Scott, L. M. (1994). Images in advertising: the need for a theory of visual rhetoric. Journal of Consumer Research, 21:252–273.Suche in Google Scholar
Sloane, T. (Ed.) (2001). Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Stam, R., Robert, B., and Flitterman-Lewis, S. (1992). New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Swanson, W. (2003). Modes of Co-Reference as an Indicator of Genre. Berlin: Peter Lang.Suche in Google Scholar
Van Dijk, T. A. (1980). Story comprehension: an introduction. Poetics, 9:1–21.Suche in Google Scholar
- 1
“Syntagms are not given. They are constructed by their interpreters” (Lemke 2009: 5).
- 2
This was also Metz’s point of departure in the segmentation of filmic narratives: “The starting unit for Metz’s classification of alternatives is what he terms the autonomous sequence. This is the filmic realization of what, on the narrative level mentioned above, can be described or is being constructed as a single ‘episode’ with some ‘unity of ‘action’’” (Bateman 2007: 20).
- 3
Also note that transcription issues concern the recording of paralinguistic elements that lie in the realm of kinesics and proxemics (see Bezemer and Mavers 2011).
- 4
Also see Neuendorf (2002a: 194): “There are two dominant methods for coding data or coding schemes, pre-set coding and emergent coding”.
- 5
With the exclusion of non-English speaking ads, which were not featured in the analysis due to the author’s non-mastery of the language involved.
- 6
Semes constitute the minimal units of multimodal semantic content (Rossolatos, 2014).
- 7
Cited in McQuarrie and Philips (2004).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin / Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- The Multimodal Dimension of Claims in Food Packaging
- Modal Analysis of Superflat Aesthetics
- Multimodal Hyperbole
- Conducting Multimodal Rhetorical Analysis of TV Ads with Atlas.ti 7
- Multimodal Aspects of Representation and Interdiscursive Hybridity in Corporate Films
- Interview with Professor José A. Rueda
- Visual Essay
- WhatsApp Omani Teachers: Social Media and the Question of Social Change
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- The Multimodal Dimension of Claims in Food Packaging
- Modal Analysis of Superflat Aesthetics
- Multimodal Hyperbole
- Conducting Multimodal Rhetorical Analysis of TV Ads with Atlas.ti 7
- Multimodal Aspects of Representation and Interdiscursive Hybridity in Corporate Films
- Interview with Professor José A. Rueda
- Visual Essay
- WhatsApp Omani Teachers: Social Media and the Question of Social Change
