Representational meanings in the poster of Mahsa Amini’s death: A multimodal discourse analysis

Salahuddin Salahuddin

doi:10.21831/ltr.v22i2.61464

Representational meanings in the poster of Mahsa Amini’s death: A multimodal discourse analysis

Salahuddin Salahuddin, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia

10.21831/ltr.v22i2.61464

Abstract

The death of Mahsa Amini in Iran garnered international attention through protests, rallies, and online movements that spread across various regions in Iran and social media platforms. Throughout the demonstration, numerous visual representations in the form of posters were created to elicit sympathy on an international scale. This article aims to uncover the representational meanings conveyed by these posters, employing a multimodal discourse perspective as introduced by Kress and Leeuwen (2021). The posters were sourced from different Instagram accounts and recommended websites like theguradian.com and dezeen.com. The findings reveal that the analyzed posters effectively communicate representational meanings through their constituent elements, including the process, participants, and circumstances. The researcher concludes that the semiotic system employed in the posters successfully establishes a connection with the issue or event being discussed. The posters depict Iranian women as individuals who courageously resist tyranny and advocate for the freedom to express themselves. The presence of distinct actions like trimming hair, clenching fists, and joining hands among women authentically portrays the protest's reality. Hence, in this instance, the creators of the posters have conscientiously considered the crucial components, reflecting the existing reality to convey the message to the viewers accurately. Communicating meaning or delivering a message to the audience holds significant implications for the success of garnering international community support and raising awareness about the ongoing issue.

Keywords: Mahsa Amini, Multimodal Analysis, Representational Meanings

Keywords

Mahsa Amini, Multimodal Analysis, Representational Meanings

Full Text:

PDF

References

Widayanti. (2016). A Case Study of Multimodal Analysis: The Representation of a Female Model in the ‘Insight’ Rubric of Male Magazine 147th Edition. Passage2016, 4(2), 126-143

Ahmadi, D. (2023). Standing on top of society’s sexist load: Gate-keeping activism and feminist respectability politics in the case of the Iranian MeToo Movement. Women’s Studies International Forum, 99, 102765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2023.102765

Barthes, R., & Heath, S. (1977). Figure, music, text: Essays (13. [Dr.]). Fontana.

Bartkowski, J. P., & Read, J. G. (2002). Veiled Submission: Gender, Power, and Identity Among Evangelical and Muslim Women in the United States. Qualitative Sociology.

Belgrimet, S., & Rabab’ah, G. (2021). A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of English Posters in Violence Awareness Campaigns against Women. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 11(2), 191. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1102.12

Coffman, J. (2003). Prepared for the Communications Consortium Media Center.

Devi, S. (2022). “The fear never goes away”: Women’s health in Iran. The Lancet, 400(10360), 1292–1293. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01979-1

Eggins, S. (2004). An introduction to systemic functional linguistics (2nd ed). Continuum.

Foley, M., & Cooper, R. (2021). Workplace gender equality in the post-pandemic era: Where to next? Journal of Industrial Relations, 63(4), 463–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/00221856211035173

Forceville, C. (2021). Multimodality (Chapter 26) In Xu Wen & John R. Taylor, The Routledge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 676-687)

Forceville, Charles (2022). Visual and multimodal communication across cultures. In: István Kecskés (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics/CHIP (527-551). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781108884303.

Fuhse, J. A. (2022). How Can Theories Represent Social Phenomena? Sociological Theory, 40(2), 99–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/07352751221087719

Halliday, M. A. K. (2007). On matter and meaning: The two realms of human experience. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 1. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.2005.1.1.59

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar (3rd ed). Arnold; Distributed in the United States of America by Oxford University Press.

Kabir, A. (2022). Iran’s protester children do not belong in a correctional and rehabilitation center. The Lancet, 400(10367), 1923. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)02184-5

Khatam, A. (2023). Mahsa Amini’s killing, state violence, and moral policing in Iran. Human Geography, 194277862311593. https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786231159357

Kress, G., & Leeuwen, T. van. (2021). Reading Figures: The Grammar of visual design (3rd edition). Routledge.

Kurzman, C., Dong, W., Gorman, B., Hwang, K., Ryberg, R., & Zaidi, B. (2019). Women’s Assessments of Gender Equality. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 5, 237802311987238. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023119872387

Liu, J. (2013). Visual Figures Interpretive Strategies in Multimodal Texts. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 4(6), 1259–1263. https://doi.org/10.4304/jltr.4.6.1259-1263

Liu, S. (2019). A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of the Interactive Meaning in Public Service Advertisement. JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN LINGUISTICS, 10, 1523–1534. https://doi.org/10.24297/jal.v10i0.8196

Markey, J. F. (1926). A Redefinition of Social Phenomena: Giving a Basis for Comparative Sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 31(6), 733–743. https://doi.org/10.1086/213987

Molana, H., Ranjbar, A. M., & Razavi, S. (2023). Woman, Life, Freedom: Decoding the feminist uprising in Iran. Political Geography, 103, 102834. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102834

Nöth, W. (1990). Handbook of Semiotics. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(97)83637-5

O’Halloran, K. L. (2023). Matter, meaning, and semiotics. Visual Communication, 22(1), 174–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221128881

Opoola, B. T., & Awoniyi, F. E. (2019). Sexualisation of Women in Nigerian Advertorial

English Medium Bill Board. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 9, No. 8, pp. 891-901. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0908.01

Pasha-Zaidi, N. (2015). The Hijab Effect: An exploratory study of the influence of hijab and religiosity on perceived attractiveness of Muslim women in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. Ethnicities, 15(5), 742–758. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796814546914

Sharmaa, A. (n.d.). The Iran Crisis: Discourse on Iran’s Human Rights violations, and the Power of the Internet to Ensure International Responsibility.

Sreenivasan, G. (2014). Equality, opportunity, ambiguity. Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 13(1), 82–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594X13496071

Terres, M. L., Torres, M. C., & Heberle, V. M. (2020). THE VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF MATURE WOMEN ON THE POSTERS OF THE NETFLIX SERIES “GRACE AND FRANKIE.” Trabalhos Em Linguística Aplicada, 59(3), 2309–2329. https://doi.org/10.1590/01031813916721620210125

Lamb, B. (1997). The Good Campaigns Guide. London: NCVO Publications.

Uygur, H. (2022). Iran in the Wake of Mahsa Amini’s Death. Insight Turkey, 24(Fall 2022), https://www.insightturkey.com/. https://doi.org/10.25253/99.2022244.1

Vazquez, F. (2022). Modeling and Analysis of Social Phenomena: Challenges and Possible Research Directions. Entropy, 24(4), 491. https://doi.org/10.3390/e24040491

Walby, S. (2009). Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446269145

Websites:

Al Jazeera and News Agencies. Mahsa Amini: Woman dies after arrest by Iran’s morality police. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/16/iranian-woman-dies-after-moral-polices-detention-reports. Accessed on December 3rd, 2022.

Girdhar, A. (2022). Is Poster a Media? What are the Most Popular Types of Posters? https://www.appypie.com/faqs/is-poster-a-media. Accessed on December 3rd, 2022.

Hahn, J. (2022). Designers share graphics in solidarity with Iranian women "fighting for their dignity". https://www.dezeen.com/2022/10/05/iran-protest-graphics-mahsa-amini/. Accessed on December 4th, 2022.

Hart, F. (2022). ‘Something in me sparked’: the Iranian women using art to protest. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/03/something-sparked-iranian-women-art-protest-mahsa-amini. Accessed on December 4th, 2022.

Jacobo, J., & Malekian, S. (2022). Iran's morality police status is unclear, but wearing the hijab is still mandatory for Iranian women. https://abcnews.go.com/International/irans-morality-police-wearing-hijab-mandatory-iranian-women/story?id=94436834. Accessed on December 5th, 2022.

Motamedi, M. (2022). Iran suspends morality police. What does it mean? Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/4/iran-suspends-morality-police-what-does-it-mean. Accessed on December 5th, 2022.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21831/ltr.v22i2.61464