Critical Discourse Analysis in Social Media Ads: Starbucks

Özet

Today, many advertisements are presented in various media such as printed or social media with interesting, creative, attractive and persuasive appearances. In these advertisements, the common use of verbal and non-verbal signs and the development of conspicuous language phenomena have made it necessary to explore the advertising discourse and analyze the desired message. For this purpose, in this study, both English and Turkish advertisements taken from the social media accounts of Starbucks, a very popular coffee brand, were examined from the perspective of ‘‘Critical Discourse Analysis’’. This study mainly focuses on how the use of language and visual design in the advertisements of the relevant brand affects customers. To analyze the effects of linguistic and visual elements on the preferability of products, qualitative research was conducted on four different Starbucks advertisements in Turkish and English, adopting Fairclough's (1992) Critical Discourse Analysis framework. The obtained data were analyzed by making a thematic analysis. The findings showed that the brand uses a variety of strategies to influence customers’ perceptions, with relevant social media advertisements using approaches such as ‘seasonal drinks’ and ‘individuality’ to encourage the purchase of products. As a result, it can be stated that Critical Discourse Analysis is an effective approach that allows the methods of influencing people in creating meaning and the examination of these effects in different social contexts.