THE UPRISING OF SOCIAL VALUES AS A STAKE OF THE 2012 GREEK ELECTIONS CAMPAIGN. FOLLOWERS OF SYRIZA ARE DESIGNING THE NEW POSTERS FOR THEIR PARTY CAMPAIGN.
$avtor = ""; if(empty($myrow2["author"])) { $avtor=""; } else { $avtor="автор: "; } ?>Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
University of Western Macedonia, Greece
University of Western Macedonia, Greece
Abstract
Election campaigns became the most suitable spatio-temporal contexts where and when any (possible) President will implicitly or explicitly connect to some powerful mental images, adapted to the social and cultural embeddings. In this paper, we focus on the study of 25 election campaign posters during the 2012 election campaigns in Greece as they had been ordered and produced by particular followers-designers of the left-orientated party of Syriza. In the Greek elections of 2012, Syriza’s rise has put pressure on the traditional forces to create a wider coalition and had produced many “alternative” posters. The aim of this piece of research is to illustrate the socio-cultural meaning of these posters: the literature offers three general conceptions of the receivers, as-mass, as-outcome, and as agent. The audience-as-agent conception (poster creators as transcoders of political ideology/ followers-designers) has largely come to dominate our understanding of the engagement between the viewer and text, therefore this model allows us (the viewers) to move toward the idea that viewer engagement can itself create social value – whether cultural or political. Our research is based on socio-semiotic methodology (Barthes, 1977; Kress, et al 1996; Lagopoulos & Boklund-Lagopoulou, 1992; Randviir & Cobley, 2010), which is not confined to a formalistic approach of texts, but scrutinizes them as an integral part of a material, socioeconomic and political context. We apply this methodology in order to determine the messages ideology in relation to the world of left-orientated politics. The analysis led to a series of important data referring to the structuring of the verbal and iconic message of the posters and how this messages and signs are connected with “new forms” of politics, which are reproduced by Party followers. Political posters have the potential for meaning (are signs with appearance, information and targets), but that meaning probably, cannot be directly transmitted from any designer to the gaze of voters. It can only be mediated through the voters’ social context, which lies outside the designer’s control. This semiotic mechanism, in which followers-designers and voters are connected through posters, is where socio-cultural value being more realized.
1. Introduction – Theoretical background
The main exponents of politics and at the same time official bodies of ideology are the political parties, the so-called ‘parties of power’ within and outside Parliament. Mass communications comprise institutions and techniques by which specialized groups use communication tools to disseminate symbolic messages in a crowded and heterogeneous audience (Janowitz 1988). Under a sociological perspective, mass communication has the character of a social relationship in which a big amount of people and groups takes part. Thus, political advertising, arranges to feed the masses with social standards, which ensure systemic balance, especially in an election campaign period.
Therefore, the mechanisms of mass culture use various methods of influencing by means of indirect, diffuse and internalized coercions, thereby introducing the so-called symbolic violence, as Antonio Gramsci had designated, a cultural hegemony (Petras & Veltmeyer 2001), which is no other than the dominant culture (Gramsci 1971; Eagleton 1991; Manheim 1985; Althusser 1984). According to Baudrillard, the mass media are not simple coefficients but modulators of the dominant ideology, through which promote definitions of reality which completely invalidate critical thinking – crafting, in fact, a fake reality (Hall 1980) and giving the receiver the feeling that the thought of the transmitter is his own thinking, confirmed by a third party (Downing 1980).
Posters were used as a tool both in politic actions and war, but with certain limits, which made them acceptable because of the situation. The end of the First World War and the various political upheavals in Russia and elsewhere, were two important factors that influenced the direction of political posters for something new, not commercial. This thing didn’t satisfy both governments and poster creators. Until 1950's, the idea of political posters was a “medium of advertising persuasion” or an “artistic” medium of advertising (Barnicoat 1972).
The poster is a prime form of ideological speech; it is a creation of advertising – being integrated into mass communication. Used largely by advertising because its visual-scenic status enables it to transmit polysemy and high density signals mainly through its virtual function. As a carrier of meanings, it produces ideology allowing intervention codes inherent in society. At the same time, it uses images, concepts, ideas, beliefs, myths, etc. available in the mainstream culture. The poster, in other words, is not merely a reflection of the dominant ideology; but a process that we could argue, which is one of the most typical examples of “myth” in a Barthesian sense. Barthes (1979) describes the myth as a particular semiotic system, derived from a first semiological chain which existed before myth. The myth namely is a second semiotic system. So, political campaigns are the most suitable for projecting social or other values and also ideology of each party. As well as, it derives a question which Andreas Ventsel puts(2014: 175-192) on how to visualize hegemonic relationship in photography, as photography is a strong instrument on which power relations are established (in our case in political posters).
In Greece, there are 7 major political parties that are elected in the Parliament after the latest elections of 2012 (New Democracy – Syriza[1] – Pasok – Golden Dawn – Independent Greeks – Dimar – KKE). Syriza is the major opposition party, leaded by Alexis Tsipras (40 years old) and elected 71 MP's. In the Greek elections of 2012, Syriza's rise has put pressure on the traditional forces to create a wider coalition and had produced many “alternative” posters. Election campaigns became the most suitable spatio-temporal contexts where and when any (possible) President will implicitly or explicitly connect to some powerful mental images, adapted to the social and cultural embeddings.
In this political and ideological context we focus on the study of 24 election campaign posters during the 2012 election campaigns in Greece as they had been ordered and produced by followers of the left-orientated party of Syriza. The aim of this piece of research is to illustrate the social meaning of these posters. The key question is how people make signs in the context of interpersonal and institutional power relations to achieve specific aims.
Political posters have the potential for meaning (i.e. are signs with appearance, information and targets), but that meaning cannot be directly transmitted from the designer to the gaze of voters. It can only be mediated through the voters’ social context, which lies outside the designer’s control. Our researching question refers to this context where social value is realized. Obviously, the definition of values is difficult to be given while value is that man believes he deserves in life. It would be, in other words, an illusion to give a definition for the term value, since the boundaries of terms are socially defined and we understand that vary depending on the ‘filter’ we use to analyse them (ideological, cultural, economic, scientific, philosophical, etc.).
What a person or a culture considers as a value, for others it is demerit. The general use of the term in social sciences implies any object of any need, attitude or desire. The interest of sociologists did not focus on the validity and relevance of the scientific importance of values, but regardless of their definition, they considered values as 'empirical variables' within social life. For social scientists, the scientific importance of values was not related to whether the values are true or false, valid or not, but to explore the use of the term by the people in a society where those who profess to believe them as true and correct. So, social values are ideas and beliefs of the majority of members of a society for the desirable and undesirable, the just and the unjust, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly (Christodoulou 2013).
Studying ideology brings semiotics in an interdisciplinary contact with philosophy and the social sciences. U. Eco describes ideologies as codes that are present in the messages with a number of associations (Nöth 1995: 377–378). Ideology operates primarily at the level of associations, often by unconscious meanings, which have texts or practices. In this sense, ideology resembles a hegemonic attempt to restrict certain associations to establish new and to generate new connotations, according to Barthes. Texts, as ideological forms, often carry a ‘latent consciousness’, a hidden ideology, as they present the world with a particular image (Storey 1993: 2–6).
As mentioned before, the analysis in this paper focuses on posters of SYRIZA, having in common, paradigmatic axis of social values. In fact, the discussion of the analysis of the term social values in an exemplary axis means that there is a debate opposite meanings, but the visual comparison of different producers of posters. This means that ideology (party) and its linguistic realization reflect one another, so that each partisan statement arises primarily ‘social’, namely a reflection of society and not just a disciplined manipulation of significance (Iedema 1995:22–36). The term social value appears as a concept to deal with an ideological agreement – in this case the selected posters. The choices at the level of words or codes will likely support or disprove the above terms based on the analysis.
The question that arises in the context of an analysis is why the analysis is done. The answer to this question relates to the reminder that the texts selected for analysis did not differ ideologically, culturally, socio-economically and politically, by a clear framework within which it is embedded, namely, ‘bear’, values and ideas, because of the fact that are produced for a particular party in an election campaign. It is known that language is not “socially innocent”, while words have a second memory and are lined with associative loadings. Language carries numerous information and ideological messages (Barthes 1971). Texts namely are studied as cultural texts in their current socio-political context (Iedema 1995).
2. Analysis
The analysis of twenty four (24) posters is based on a linguistic content analysis in the context of structural semantics to reveal apparent mechanisms of the production of meaning (Barthes 1977; Greimas 2005[2], Kress et al 1996; Lagopoulos & Boklund-Lagopoulou 1992; Randviir & Cobley 2010). The analysis is not confined to a formalisticapproach of texts, but scrutinizes them as an integral part of a material, with socioeconomic and political context.
Structural semantics is a method of analyzing not only natural languages but every semiotic system. Principal of structural semantics is that the basic semantic structures and the elements of a culture permeate all the semiotic systems of this culture. It assumes that the basic structures of the text are ‘hidden’. The aim of the structural semantics is to identify the main structures of significance of the text and to make clear their internal relationship. Basic concept of structural semantics is the isotope, namely all units ratio (references) according to their semantic content (semantic code).
The analysis revealed 15 semantic codes, covering the semantic content of the responses to the level of detail of interest, that is, reports concerning to values or demerits in an individual and social level. These are the following semantic codes: reversal, resistance, of values, arise, national, leisure, electoral, political, historical, temporal, monumental, traffic, people, humorous, literary.
Taking advantage of the specificity of this campaign – which was designed by ordinary members of the party and not by an advertising company- we seek the non-linguistic communication of left ideology and how it is represented in visual material. The visual semiotic perspective in our case discloses that it is a social research process, thus we proceed from “language” to the “semiotic” mode. By this point of view, new forms and modes of communication are revealed and integrated through political posters and representations. We apply this methodology in order to determine the messages ideology in relation to the world of left-orientated politics.
The question that arises: how a form of expression, which in this case is the poster, we arrive to a form of co-emphasis is ideology? By which way the literal level is building the prime associative level of ideology (signifiers-rhetorical/ideological signifieds). How is this made virtually?
In a poster analysis we can focus into two main axes, (a) to the poster itself (production) and (b) how people receive the message (consumption). In our research we focus in the production of the posters (figure 1).
Fig. 1
Every poster is constructed by the same way, in tree zones: (α) The non-verbal message/Iconogramm, (β) A steady message in three parts. For example: They decided without us/We are moving without them, Overturn in Greece/ Message to EU, (c) Syrizas’ brand name (figure 2).
Fig. 2
The method of analysis of the 24 posters followed structurally the same mode as shown in Table 1 below. On the left the poster and on the right information about (a) the linguistic message, (b) the virtual message (persons and objects) and (c) the dominant codes of the language and virtual message, respectively (see table 1).
Poster | Verbal | Iconic | Codes | |
Persons | Objects |
| ||
we are crossing the most critical period before democracy (ironic message) | three political persons from (Pasok,[3] ND, IMF) wearing army uniforms | Phoenix (junta symbol) | · Political (army/junta) · Historic |
Table 1: Example of Analysis.
From the analysis of the posters we have fifteen (15) codes that are involved in the interpretive process for the production of meaning without defining the concepts of text, but they tend to limit their function as communicative conventions (Chandler, 1994). The results shown that from the total twenty four (24) posters, fifteen (15) of them have linguistic messages (62%). The linguistic message concerns on the following codes:
a) Code of Values: health, peace, solidarity, dignity, freedom, education, culture, justice, democracy, popular power, resistance
b) Political Code: for real democracy and popular power, vote to the left, the attached us memorandum, loans, debts, bipartisanship sets – Greece rises, golden dawn.
c) Resistance code: resistance, disobedience, we can overthrow them, to deport them, we are moving on, we have the power in our hands, go away.
d) Literary Code: poetry.
e) Code of Waking up: attention, danger, death, think, no.
f) Humoristic: Bennito, Karatzaphurrer, you will bite again?
g) Saluting: goodbye, Like (facebook).
h) Temporal: 6-5-2012, time is over.
i) Electoral: Here we present “solutions”, through them Syriza.
We observe that, regarding to the linguistic message on the posters, it works either auxiliary or supplementary to the operation of the “anchor” and “broadcast” of the linguistic message (Barthes 1988). By the process of anchoring, the linguistic message helps on choosing the right perceptual level, in other words attracts the gaze and the perception of the receiver on the projected image of the shapes and the messages which make use (Kress 2010). The anchorage offers us a declaration or otherwise a meta-language for certain parts of the virtual message.
Persons appear in eight (8) posters (33,3%) and are:
a) Six (6) persons with a red star heart
b) a young man.
c) three persons/politicians with military outfit (members of other parties).
d) three persons with suits and hoods.
e) the devil in blue and green background.
f) crowd.
g) the Monopoly guy.
h) German soldiers.
We observe that persons belong to politics, to religion (devil), to history (Germans), to economy and leisure games (Monopoly) and to society in general (youth, crowd). Concerning the objects, which in their majority are symbolic, they are correlated with the following codes:
a) Political: party flag, Phoenix (junta), red signs of left turns, clepsydra (blue-green), party symbols, nazi flags, Greece.
b) Social: jail cells.
c) Resistance: two fists on a red background (compound), punch, two fists in blue and green background (dec), Trotskyist fist.
d) Electoral: voting envelope, lobby hat (capitalism), ballot, election records.
Miscellaneous items: crook, hook, TV, lightning, backgammon, blue and green dice, nails resulting from blue and green holes, money, citadel, a theater, feet.
3. Results/Discussion
From the above analysis of 24 posters, as carriers of values of SYRIZA, raises a number of general conclusions. These findings relate to the achievement of this objective, ie, how the political ideology of the left party SYRIZA is structured. Posters, as articulated semantic sets which are ‘carrying’ an ideological load, were analyzed on their structural elements based on the theory of A. Greimas, i.e. codes.
The analysis led to a series of important data referring to the structuring of the verbal and iconic message of the posters and how these messages and signs are connected with “new forms” of politics, which are reproduced by Syriza Party followers. Although semiotics can analyze systems of meanings, cannot go further without interdisciplinary collaborations. It is well known that in every social and financial crisis, international community is focused firstly on education. Semiotic analysis of political posters (and not only) can contribute in citizenship education, giving deconstruction tools to citizens – pupils to raise their political awareness and also it can be useful to citizens in order to understand the difference between ideology and propaganda.
Posters are hinged so as to be read in a particular way – reading, which hides messages.The analysis, showed to us that the structure of meanings of posters is made by a relation between two poles: “Us” Vs “Them”. This is the semiotic mechanism of meanings. Regarding the semantic charge of the “US”, we observe that they are correlated with codes as: values, democracy, popular power, resistance, history and literature. In regard to “THEM”, we observe that producers select to represent the others as demerits. E.g. skulls, troika bombs, devils, memoranda. So, the relationship between these two poles of “we” and “they”, shows the possible “overthrow” through our participation in elections by voting in order to give a strong signal to Europe.
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