Open versus closed advertising texts and interpretive communities

Natalia Yannopoulou and Richard Elliott

This paper examines the interpretation of print advertising by different interpretive communities, and explores how audiences interpret open-text vs closed-text advertisements.

Open versus closed advertising texts and interpretive communities

Natalia YannopoulouUniversity of Warwick

Richard ElliottUniversity of Bath

INTRODUCTION

There has been a noticeable shift in print advertisements from functional to symbolic approaches as the use of rhetorical style in magazine advertisements has grown progressively more complex and elaborated over time. Whereas advertisements from the 1950s used only one rhetorical figure and explained it in words, advertisements from later time periods tend to use unanchored rhetorical figures and layer them more thickly (Phillips & McQuarrie 2002). Advertisers appear to have assumed a greater degree of competency with respect to consumers'...

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