ABSTRACT
Textual analysis is one of the cornerstones of Media Studies. But no matter how great the virtuosity demonstrated in analysing texts, this is rarely an end in itself. Textual analysis is a process by which we can both reveal the inner workings of a text and identify its significance in terms of the wider social and cultural issues to which it relates. For example, the analysis of an advertisement for a beauty product is rarely an end in itself. Its significance is more likely to lie in the way in which it reveals to us the underlying nature of gender relations within our culture.This significance may become more evident when we consider the cumulative effect of the many similar advertisements alongside which a particular text is situated. In fact, it is likely to be the cumulative impact of a group of related texts that reveals the ideological forces that are at play within each one individually.
