Examining the Visual Mode of Meaning Construction

The importance of visual mode of meaning construction has been broadly acknowledged, but only a handful of researchers have established a theory and study based on visual advertising. This paper elucidates the emergence and major perspectives of semiotics, the doctrine of signs, aesthetics, and sexual appeals. This study relies on an archaeological approach, uses images for data collection method, nonrandom-sample with a purposive sampling procedure and a discourse analysis I for data analysis. Amid its strengths, visual codes create meaning at the nucleus of consumer behavior and offer a rich meta-language for semiotic consumer research. A formula of success regarding visual codes is presented and assists to construct meaning in advertisements efficiently. Societal and managerial implications concerning visual advertisement are presented. This study is exemplified by the case of American Apparel.