Semiotic Analysis of some Election Posters: A Systemic Semiotic Analysis of some Election Posters:

Despite their importance in constructing meaning, images have received less attention in research work. Hence, this research is an attempt to explore how persuasive messages are made powerful by integrating texts and images. Thus, the visual semiotic approach to analyzing images proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) based on the metafunction principle of Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) is applied to some Egyptian presidential election campaign posters in 2012 and 2014. The rationale for choosing election posters to analyze is because they are multimodal texts that combine textual and visual modes for a persuasive effect. Textual modes refer to the words written on the selected posters whether slogans, quotes or supplications while visual modes refer to the non-verbal signs displayed in the image. The objective of this study is to investigate how semiotic and textual modes are exploited to control and direct the attitude of the viewer towards the image. It also discusses the question of how far these modes are in unison towards directing the viewer’s judgment about the personality of the political candidate. The analysis investigates the semiotic modes of modality, social distance, colour, framing, camera angle, and placement of signs. This research hypothesizes that the way the image is portrayed controls the attitude of the viewer towards the image. The results showed that social semiotic modes are powerful in addressing the three metafunctions of ideational, interpersonal and textual. It also revealed that combining text and image helps propagate ideologies. Meaning and ideology are mostly implied, and require a deeper level of analysis to unmask