Literally frames and framing devices create boundaries for the purpose of calling attention to something. In this monopoly ad the whole page constitutes a frame. There are frames within frames as you look at the borders around the gold top hat, car, houses and hotels. These frames are put into relationship with one another for the sake of creating a message. Ads are created by the sender and interpreted by the reader.
Reading the ad from top to bottom the recognizable MONOPOLY font is centered, the board is diagonal with the GO in the middle and two smaller frames on either sides which catch the readers attention by a tiny sparkle. The reader is drawn in and the corner of the board points down to the fine print for the interested buyer to read further. From the font to the double six's on the board the creator of this ad has framed the images to create a message of authenticity and class that goes beyond $10:00 cardboard version of Monopoly.
Anthony Wilden calls framing devices "Punctuation." Punctuation because they highlight something. Images, facial expressions, fonts, intonations, tones, or gestures can all highlight or stamp an advertisement in order to form a communicable message. The painter or photographer spends hours perfecting and placing a frame around their piece of work in order to create the perfect device to draw the viewer to their image while excluding others.
By including certain images or type within a frame the creator excludes other messages which are not present. The border for a frame can be thought of as an imaginary line because what is included in the ad or frame is defined not only by what is within it, but what is exterior to it. Looking at this Ad for a Monopoloy board the savvy reader can see that by excluding perfume or scanitly clad woman it distinguishes itself from other advertisments. This may seem trite on the surface, but it serves the purpose of showing that by changing the font of MONOPOLY, or altering the framed images of a golden car and top-hat would alter not only the structure of the ad, but the whole message.
The Dinosaur (signified in referent system) has been removed (abstracted) from it's original context and placed into the advertisement as a framing device and also as a signifier which refers back to the referent system. "As 'messages intended to organize the perception of the viewer,' frames permit the inclusion of certain messages and relations while excluding others" (Bateson, 1972: 187 cited in Goldman, 1992: 65).
The Dinosaur is framed with the image of a motor boat and a row boat. While the Dinosaur may be referring back to the referent system, it signifies fear within its new context. The fear of being eaten, and the fear of being left in the Dinosaur age. The key to interpreting the meanings of the framing devices is the metastructure. The metastructure puts these framing devices: type face ("There are times when faster is decidedly better"), the two boats, and the product (photocopier) in the bottom right corner. The metastructure puts the framing devices together to form a system of rules which allows someone to make sense of the advertisements. If we think of letters or words as the framing devices, and the grammatical rules of language as metastructure, we can see how framing devices are put together to form some kind of language for interpretation.
In order for a reader of this advertisement to interpret this language, they must be appellated into the advertisement. The process by which advertisers 'hail' the reader and ask them to insert themselves into the advertisement. "Consumer ads name us through their mode of address, asking us to insert ourselves when the model fitsÉwe are invited to perform a critical interchange of meanings" (Goldman, 1992: 56). The appellation in this ad is not done by hailing you and inserting one's individual name, but by placing two people in two boats. With any sense of imagination, the reader of the advertisement will be able to imagine which boat they would be rather be in. The type face makes this decision for us, "there are times when faster is decidedly better." Thus we pick the speed boat, because it will get us there faster. Where is it going, right down to the product (photocopier) in the bottom right hand corner. Thus, we equate speed with Minolta photocopiers, rather than all the other photo copiers out there represented by the guy in the row-boat. If we notice, the guy in the row-boat is going nowhere, but off the page into a void of nothingness. Once the equivalence relation is made between speed and Minolta copiers, Minolta takes on the sign-value of speed. The concept of reification as equating material objects with inanimate or human qualities does not apply here, as the concept of speed is equated with a row boat, and then equated with another material object (photocopier).
Another interpretation of this ad is in the form of a joke. The Dinosaur could represent a slower Dinosaur age, and the row-boat refers to a newer, more advanced technological age, where one has to be in order to compete in the business world. Thus, two referent systems are bounced off each other in order to give the reader (big business) the impression that they do not want to be left behind in the race to have the fastest and most advanced technology. If the businessman is left behind, they will be eaten by the terrible market forces which can squelch the naive corporate consumer.
More importantly these framing devices can be signals or signs, "The signals or signs which 'frame' or 'label' the message (or which metacommunicate about the communication in the message) are obviously of higher logical type than the message they classify."