Daniel De la Miyar (Texas A&M International University, USA:
The purpose of this essay is to discuss the mechanisms through which social status is presented in print advertisements and make the reader aware of the ways they reflect and promote social status in Mexican magazines for their upper-class readers. The goal is to determine the relationship between social status and the messages advertisers create through the use of visual and textual semiotics based on the semiotic analysis framework of Bell and Milic (2002), and to locate instances that index social status reflected in the advertisements selected. Four campaigns were selected with a total of 25 advertisements included in two Mexican elite magazines only circulated in Mexico: Caras and Quién. Studies on the influence of social statuses presented in advertising targeting higher economic-class are scarce and this paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of this phenomenon. The intended audience for these magazines are upper class readers with financial freedom and high social status, a sub-segment of the audience also underrepresented in current scholarship.