To secure an A* overall, I will need to get 72 marks on paper 2.

Figure 1 shows an advertisement for the city of Manchester at Christmas time. 

Analyse how specific signs construct meanings about Christmas in Figure 1 

According to theorists such as Barthes and De Saussure, signs exist in media products to clearly denote meanings to audiences. This can be seen in the Manchester Christmas advert. The snow in the image acts as an indexical figure representing a winter setting as the ‘signified’ of the text. The presence of multiple families, one of which has a small child with them, establishes the ideology that Christmas as a celebration is not limited to specific ages and is instead a very inclusive and mass holiday, especially in an urban area/city like Manchester. The text in the product (which could be interpreted as the dominant signifier) makes the intention of the advert clear – producers hope to attract more people towards the city by having them accept the preferred reading of the text via anchorage, having them believe that “When it comes to Christmas, there’s no place like Manchester”. Iconography related to Christmas is also used with the inclusion of Santa Claus, an immensely popular character that immediately reinforces the periodic setting of the advertisement and likely targets children as an audience for the advert (since Santa is a commercial figure for products aimed at families and young kids). The beaming lights almost create the idea of warmth around Manchester, once again acting as a factor in making the city ‘unique’ in a time period where the country is traditionally cold.