"It's only crazy until you do it" - A Critical Discourse Analysis of Nike advertisements

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of celebrity endorsements in Nike advertisements. The top ten most popular Nike advertisements have been collected and then examined based on the use of language. Since this study is concerned with linguistic analysis, only advertisements with linguistic content have been taken into consideration. The purpose of this research is to find power relations present in fitness advertisements using celebrity endorsements. The theoretical part describes different aspects of CDA such as narrative, deixis, register, as well as the semiotic perspective of advertising. Moreover, the fundamental CDA approach in the present study is the three-dimensional model proposed by Fairclough (2003). The use of different approaches helps to find a connection between these fields and the way they together build the power image of a celebrity. In addition, this study identifies common techniques used in advertising. The approach to this study is qualitative; the data have been gathered through one of the most popular social media platforms - Youtube. The result of the analysis shows that celebrities in Nike advertisements do not abuse their power positions. Instead, it is contended that they promote equality and show that their success was achieved through hard work and fighting against the odds, therefore it can be aspired to by others.