Semiotic analysis of the guardian and times' coverage of the 2019 protests in Iraq

Abstract EN

This research paper presents a semiotic analysis of the Guardian and Times' coverage of the 2019 protests in Iraq.

It aims to explore the implied ideologies both newspapers may convey to the very wide addressees reading them through selecting specific photos to publish in their online and in print articles covering the protests throughout the period from October till the end of December.

The main concern of this study is the visual representation of the protests in those two newspapers.

So, the photos of the articles were analyzed according to Van Leeuwen's framework of visual representation of social actors.

The framework includes specific traits to analyze images like distance, gaze, and interaction to show the ideologies those images may convey to the viewers around the world.

The results showed that both newspapers, especially the Times, showed the protesters as negative social actors who break police concrete blocks, burn tyres, resist security forces, etc.

The Guardian specified an article involving a number of images that reflect positive social actions done by protesters which are drawing murals on the walls of Baghdad streets.

So, for Leeuwen, excluding some actions and including others can generate certain ideologies and this meets our claim in this study.