Media, Power, and Persuasion: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Print Media Advertisements in Pakistan

Abstract

The study presents a multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) of the language used in print media advertisements published in Pakistan’s national newspapers. A qualitative research design was used to analyze the data by looking at two features, i.e., i) the strategies to persuade people to buy a particular product and ii) the use of linguistic choices to establish a narrative in political ads. Eight English advertisements were randomly selected from Google Images for the analysis. The study used the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) theoretical framework with a Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) approach by Kress and Leeuwen (2005). The study revealed that print media ads that advertise products use powerful language that convinces the consumer in decision-making towards buying that product, and the ads that the government advertises help build a positive narrative, an agenda, or a specific ideology towards a political party. Moreover, it explored how cultural touch in ads is added to play with the psychology and emotions of the public. This study will help explore more genres of advertising in the future as it is becoming popular with the emergence of different media platforms.

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