Advertising as a means of propagating ideology:

Abstract

Advertising discourse is eminently persuasive and hence shares many of the features related to propaganda, namely its persuasive nature, for some, manipulative and deceitful, but rather pervasive and influential in today’s consumer society. Its need for the audience’s adhesion makes it go along (besides influencing) with mainstream ideas, which makes it a relevant sociological mirror, and therefore pertinent for the purpose of this analysis. This study aims to provide an overview of the way discursive features and, particularly, argumentative strategies have evolved (if so) in beauty care products advertising, so as to infer the major concerns and ideologies that have been present in society throughout the time. For this purpose, we will resort to discourse studies, mainly argumentation studies, which may provide adequate models for analysis, such as Charaudeau’s (2008) modes of reasoning (deduction, analogy, opposition) and the framework proposed by Ruiz Ruiz (2014) which provides different ways of unveiling implicitness in discourse. This brief analysis seems to point to some, yet few, alterations in the argumentations strategies, as well as in the main topoi in beauty products.