“Visualising for Social Change”: A Critical Multimodal Study of Select Visuals in Nigeria´s Social Transformation Campaign

Abstract

Social transformation campaign which borders on awareness creation for Nigerians on the need to eschew negative behavioural practices and embrace positive thoughts and actions has been resonant in Nigeria in the past few years. Since ideology and identity construction are central to such campaigns, they constitute subjects worthy of interrogation especially regarding their agency for mass mobilisation for positive  transformation. This article examines the patterns of ideology and identity in the multimodal texts of the social transformation campaign in Nigeria to highlight their impact on social mobilisation in the nation. Data for the study comprise images on social transformation in Nigeria shared by government and private agencies on Google, YouTube and Facebook between 2013 and 2017, a period characterised by intense social mobilisation in Nigeria owing to the increase in nefarious activities in the country. The data were purposively selected as attention was paid to images elucidating aspects of social transformation campaigns such as protection of children´s rights, insecurity, hate speech, leadership and promotion of local industries. Machin and Mayr´s Critical Multimodal Discourse Analysis is employed for data analysis. The study reveals that the multimodal resources in the social transformation campaigns are purveyors of ideologies and identities underlying the country´s ideal of social transformation. Prominent in the visual discourse are welfarist ideology, resistance ideology and nationalist ideology. The paper further shows that national and ethnic identities are also strategically deployed to appeal to the patriotic sense of the citizens and to involve citizens of various ethnic backgrounds in the campaign.

Keywords: Nigeria, critical multimodal discourse analysis, ideology, identity, social-transformation campaign