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Research design is crucial for a study, and the Give Methods a Chance Podcast explores how different methods help scientists discover new information. In the selected episode hosted by Kyle Green, the guest Madison Van Oort described the strengths and limitations of the discourse and semiotic analysis of the fast-fashion industry’s commercials (Green, 2016). The podcast revealed the influence of selected methodology on studying how companies used the crisis of masculinity to sell their products. This paper aims to summarize the podcast and discuss the application of semiotic analysis to examine how news’ infographics about COVID-19 mortality influence the vaccination rates in the United States.
Van Oort is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota, who conducted scientific research with Green, the podcast’s host. They reviewed Super Bowl commercials from a sociological perspective because they noticed the trend of masculinity’s humiliation. In the podcast, scientists discussed how the crisis of masculinity was employed to increase sales and revealed the semiotic analysis’ benefits for such a study (Green, 2016). Van Oort described the strengths and limitations of the discourse and semiotic analysis based on the interviewee’s main field of work – modern fast-fashion and low-wage labor.
Semiotic analysis is the qualitative research method necessary to disclose how the general idea of a selected commercial is tailored. Applying the strategy to practice helps sociologists reveal if multiple signs are recognized in society and the interrelation between what is displayed and how people perceive visual information. Green and Van Oort watched all Super Bowl commercials from 2008 to 2010 and analyzed what companies participated, what characters they portrayed, and the dominant themes (Green, 2016). To retrieve the essential topics for the society based on the videos’ narratives, the scientists needed to make theoretical hypotheses to check if there were patterns that submitted or denied the criticality of the selected subject (Green, 2016). The approach applied to 2010’s commercials revealed a crisis of masculinity, and the perception of men changed since the early 2000s.
Studying the Super Bowl commercials revealed the semiotic analysis’ strengths and limitations, and Van Oort reflected on them in the podcast. Indeed, the scientist mentioned that understanding broad social trends such as masculinity crisis requires more comprehensive coding than the selected strategy could provide. Researchers positioned their approach as topic-driven, and therefore their methods generalized in accordance to prove the initial hypothesis which limited them (Green, 2016). The main strength was that semiotic analysis allowed them to explore the perception of commercials holistically rather than conduct in-depth, time-consuming, and over-detailed content or discourse analyses.
Modern society lives in the COVID-19 pandemic conditions, and researching with semiotic analysis method can help study citizens’ perception of the health crisis and willingness to overcome it. The question if the news’ infographics about COVID-19 mortality rates in the United States influence people’s decision-making towards vaccination can be studied. The methods discussed in the podcast would be helpful for the research as a qualitative exploration of how seeing the rates’ lines going up or down impacts citizens beyond the word-based information (Green, 2016). The study would be conducted in three states with diverse COVID-19 mortality rates, and related news episodes of the most popular broadcasters would be included. Data collection would be applied through coding methods, selecting the categories to measure how people might react, and comparing the vaccination statistics. The research’s ethical concerns are that news’s general purpose is to inform citizens, not influence their approaches to addressing the health crisis.
The application of semiotic analysis for exploring Super Bowls commercials by Green and Van Oort is a helpful example of how social trends can be interpreted through topic-driven research. Although the methods are rather generalized, they still are considerable for sociologists, and such studies provide foundations for a more profound scientific work. Semiotic analysis is accessible to the public if the materials to study are available and if there is no demand for addressing privacy and ethical concerns.
Reference
Green, Kyle. (2016). “Madison Van Oort on Discourse Analysis & Studying Commercials.” Give Methods a Chance Podcast. Web.
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