A multimodal analysis of the depiction of Sisi in the 2014 presidential elections campaign in western online newspapers

Abstract EN

The present studies trace the depiction of the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi- then a presidential candidate facing a sole opponent, Egyptian Popular Current leader Hamdeen Sabahi- in Western online newspapers.

Images accompanying selected news articles handling the 2014 elections scene are investigated in light of Kress and van Leeuwen’s semiotic and ideological approach to analyzing news articles images enunciated in their (1996 & 2006) treatises.

The purpose is to reveal to how the presidential candidate belonging to the military institution was represented to the Western nonprofessional, illustrating to what extent he is regarded as the solution of the current troubles.

The analysis shows that the gap between Sisi and his supporters, and the economic challenges confronting him are the main themes common among the images.