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Each of these
signs relates to the other by forming the world that is streamed
across each and every advertisement, but also by speaking to the
viewer and offering them the wonderful world of Apple that is not
theirs...yet. Therefore, the combined power of these signs speaks to
the viewer and says to them, "Your life could be better, easier, and
mobile. Now make it happen." This is the preferred meaning that
Apple, Inc. hopes for the viewers to decode. These signs may appear
as denotative, but are clearly connotative by associating power and
a life of ease with the technological products, even when technology
is usually associated with difficulty and being time consuming.
Technology is also usually seen as having the tendency to separate
one from their real life, and these signs come together to challenge
that myth. They are giving a positive outlook to something that is
often criticized for severing ties. This myth is therefore
challenged, because as Barthes says, "myth is not defined by the
object of its message, but by the way in which it utters this
message" (Rose, 96). The ideologies that Apple, Inc. has in mind
create a world of positive outlooks when it comes to technology and
its capabilities and tendencies. |
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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For being such
simplistic advertisements, they exert many possibilities for the
viewer. Granted, the readings that viewers can have when seeing
these advertisements may vary, but the polysemy of the ads is fairly
limited. Because the ad is not a demanding ad, it offers the product
in a manner that says, "Here it is. It is what it is." It merely
presents the product in one distinct way, one meaning. The limit of
possible meanings, though, does not change the fact that there may
be many different decodings that vary over a wide range of opinions.
The design of these advertisements impacts the meaning greatly,
because throughout the advertisements, the voiceovers may work as a
type of anchoring, but honestly, as a viewer myself, I rarely pay
attention to the voiceovers, because the visual aspects always reel
me in the most. What do serve as an anchor throughout these
advertisements are the small phrases and Apple logos. In many of the
iPad commercials, they will show what the iPad can do, then follow
with one word that represents what was shown. For example, two sets
of hands are playing a game, then the next screen shot simply says
in black lettering on a white screen "playful". In the same
commercial an application that allows one to look up cooking recipes
right there on the screen is followed by the word "delicious". "The
text helps to identify purely and simply the elements of the scene
and the scene itself"; those elements being what is show on the iPad
screens (Barthes, 39). |
