Representations of characters in Portuguese television print advertisements in the 20th century

Abstract

Press announcements tell stories through two sign systems, verbal and visual. Focusing attention on the characters, we ask the following question: what meanings do the characters convey, given their relationship with the page space and other visual elements of the ad?
The first part of the question takes us to the geography of the press announcement, showing the results that the use of space is strategic; the second part of the question places the character in relation to other characters, to the advertised object or to the receiver, in order to activate transferences of meanings.
The corpus of analysis consisted of 441 advertisements, from the years 1957 to 2000, from two Portuguese daily newspapers. The characters were read in categories and subcategories, and the content was examined, through an exploratory analysis to identify relevant information. The analysis grid was defined using content analysis procedures.