Kandel, H. (2023). Semiotic Study of Selected UNICEF Posters on COVID 19 Pandemic. CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 82(1), 265-288. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.313627
Hend Abdel Salam Kandel. "Semiotic Study of Selected UNICEF Posters on COVID 19 Pandemic". CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 82, 1, 2023, 265-288. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.313627
Kandel, H. (2023). 'Semiotic Study of Selected UNICEF Posters on COVID 19 Pandemic', CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 82(1), pp. 265-288. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.313627
Kandel, H. Semiotic Study of Selected UNICEF Posters on COVID 19 Pandemic. CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 2023; 82(1): 265-288. doi: 10.21608/opde.2023.313627
Semiotic Study of Selected UNICEF Posters on COVID 19 Pandemic
Affiliation: Modern University for Technology and Information (MTI)
Abstract
The present study inspects selected posters of COVID 19 pandemic published by the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF amidst the pandemic. In fact, the agency is mainly concerned with providing many humanitarian aids to children worldwide. The aids include disease prevention and childhood development in response to any calamity. Thus, one of its purposes is to help children and youth to face deadly crises such as COVID 19 disease. This research assumes that the visual images issued by UICEF amid the pandemic have been able to raise awareness concerning the preventive measures that reduce the chances of COVID 19 infection. This is achieved by creating cheerful and educative posters that boost the psychological state of its viewers, and can be delivered to various audiences with their diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. The rationale of electing the posters stems from its importance in merging graphic and written styles to instruct people to deal with this dilemma. This is attained by performing a semiotic analysis of the images using Kress and Van Leeuwen framework for reading visual images (2006). This research hypothesizes that the analytical tools employed in the study tend to display the powerful effect of visual texts on the audience, more specifically, children and it could be combined into a coherent, meaningful analysis. The outcomes of the analysis prove that the framework applied in the study is comprehensive and has succeeded in delivering the intended messages in an innovative, different method, that are far away from any other stereotyping ones.