International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue VI, June 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186
JONES G. I. AYUWO, PhD
University Of Port Harcourt, Choba
Abstract: This study focused on newspaper political campaign advertisements of select candidates for the 2019 general elections in Nigeria with the aim of analysing the semiotic resources in the newspaper political campaign advertisements of the select candidates. The specific objectives were to: determine how personality profiling served as semiotic resource in the 2019 elections campaign advertisements of the APC candidate of Lagos State, Nigeria as well as examine the use of color as a semiotic resource in the 2019 elections campaign advertisements of the APC gubernatorial candidates of Lagos and Abia States, Nigeria among others. The Social Semiotic Theory was adopted as the theoretical framework for the study. Data for this study were drawn from newspaper advertisements in three national dailies: The Punch, Daily Sun and The Vanguard newspapers. The newspapers were published between December 2018 and February 2019. Three (3) advertisements were purposively selected for this study owing to the several semiotic resources in them. The data were analyzed using the Discourse Analysis approach. The analysis revealed personality profiling of the APC gubernatorial candidate of Lagos State based on his educational qualification, experience and popularity. It also showed that color, image placement, attire and handshakes were also semiotic resources found in the newspaper political campaign advertisements of the select candidates in the 2019 general elections in Nigeria. Green and red were identified to be instrumental in communicating growth, light and love. Based on the findings, it was recommended that further study be carried out to uncover the communicative elements in political campaign advertisements in Nigeria newspapers.
Key words: Personality profiling, color, image placement and discourse analysis
I.INTRODUCTION
Since political campaigns are tied to elections, which determine the individuals who lead people, they attract a lot of attention as politicians seeking elective positions invest enormous financial resources, energy and time into them in order to appeal positively to the electorate. It is common to see posters, billboards, and banners being used to project certain politicians or political parties for public acceptance. This aspect of political communication has received considerable attention (Ademilokun & Taiwo, 2013; Opeibi, 2006). Political campaigns which constitute an important part of political campaigns are also characterized by a compelling use of multimodal resources for persuasive political communication. These resources are captured on the pages of newspapers regularly.