A study of women’s empowerment campaigns: a multimodal approach

Asmaa Hathout, Nevine Sarwat, Inas Hussein, Riham Debian

Abstract


Multimodality is a new developing approach in linguistic studies which investigates various modes of meaning — from images to text and music. Women’s empowerment is the process where women are able to have greater choice and to seize more opportunities to improve their quality of life. However, sexual harassment, in particular, is a serious obstacle to achieve it and to women’s full realization of their human rights, because it restricts their freedom to move, study and work. Thus, this study sought to apply the principles of Kress and van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar (2006) to conduct a multimodal analysis of a selection of anti-harassment posters published online and designed by Women between 2011 and 2017 in three different campaigns to observe the verbal and visual manifestations of women’s empowerment discourse. It aimed to study how these posters promote women’s self-confidence to encourage them to liberate themselves from patriarchal domination and to believe in their capabilities to overcome sexual harassment as one of the most oppressive dangers that threaten their participation in their societies.

Keywords: Multimodality, Visual Grammar, posters, women’s empowerment, sexual harassment, Feminism.

 

Received: 08 November 2022

Accepted: 04 September 2023

Published: 12 September 2023


Keywords


Multimodality, Visual Grammar, posters, women’s empowerment, sexual harassment, Feminism.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21622/ILCC.2023.03.2.183

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Insights into Language, Culture and Communication
E-ISSN: 2812-491X
P-ISSN: 2812-4901 

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