Download Aalborg Universitet The Role of Media Aesthetics in Web Advertising Research

Aalborg Universitet
The Role of Media Aesthetics in Web Advertising Research
Jessen, Iben Bredahl
Publication date:
2012
Document Version
Accepted manuscript, peer reviewed version
Link to publication from Aalborg University
Citation for published version (APA):
Jessen, I. B. (2012). The Role of Media Aesthetics in Web Advertising Research. Abstract from Advertising in
Communication and Media Research, Tübingen, Germany.
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Abstract for the ECREA TWG Symposium Advertising in Communication & Media Research
Tuebingen, Germany, 14–15 June 2012
The Role of Media Aesthetics in Web Advertising Research
Iben Bredahl Jessen
Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark
Advertising is a genre that draws on a variety of other genres and modes of expression to
attract the consumer’s attention. In this sense, advertising is a parasitic genre (Cook, 2001)
borrowing from a cultural repertoire of representational practices in order to proclaim the
functional or symbolic value of a product. On the web, advertising appears in many different
formats (Barnes & Hair, 2009). Some advertisements on the web share features with
advertisements in other media, e.g. magazine or classified advertisements, others take
advantage of the unique capacities of the medium (Leckenby, 2005), for instance interactive
web banners or advergames in which the consumer is supposed to engage. Considering the
diversity of web advertising, how should we understand the use of the web as an advertising
medium? What questions should we ask to address content, genre, and medium in relation to
web advertising?
This paper focuses on media aesthetics as an approach to describe and analyze the
representational practices related to the web as an advertising medium. Starting from the
idea that media set up frames for communication (Brügger, 2002; Meyrowitz, 1993) and that
content should be studied in relation to media and media genealogy (Bolter & Grusin, 1999,
Manovich, 2001), the paper will discuss the role of media aesthetics to grasp genre complexity
in web advertising. Three levels of analysis are proposed: Firstly, media aesthetics is
considered as an approach to describe the overall dynamics in web advertising, i.e. how the
web is used as an advertising medium from a general point of view. On this level of analysis
the cultural use of the web medium is argued to be important. Secondly, media aesthetics is
proposed as a way to categorize the different sub-genres of web advertising, that is, to identify
the aesthetic variety in relation to a particular format of advertising, e.g. to describe the
different representational strategies in banner advertisements. Thirdly, media aesthetics is
outlined as a focus on content and media in case analysis.
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References
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