How to befriend an ad? A sociolinguistic and sociocultural inquiry into social media ads on Facebook

In new media contexts, as “media markets became the main advertising and marketing environments” (Brierley, S., The Advertising Handbook, London and New York 2005, p. 18), the role of multimodal advertising communication is perhaps most evident, especially when it comes to social media. However, little do we realise how social media are changing the society, its language, and communication patterns; furthermore, little do we notice the idiosyncratic features of social media advertising as well, taking them for granted. It would, therefore, be germane to inspect the way in which social media ads are woven into the tissue of contemporary society, as well as the way in which they influence modern communication patterns. The aim of this paper is to discuss these issues related to social media ads from the sociolinguistic and sociocultural standpoint, with considerable emphasis placed on FACEBOOK ads, as well as to present the format they employ as indicative of the contemporary multimodal and visual turn in communication.