DISCOURSE STRATEGIES IN SELECTED EDO 2024 EDO STATE GOBERNATORIA ELECTORIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN ADVERTISEMENTS
Abstract
Political discourse remains a compelling area of linguistic inquiry, especially during campaign advertisements, when various linguistic and non-linguistic modes are deployed to win the heart of the electorate. Extensive research exists on political discourse, including campaign speeches, concession speeches, political posters, post-election memes and political debates. This present study examines the discourse strategies employed in the 2024 Edo State gubernatorial election campaign advertisements, in order to identify the discourse strategies employed and analyse the semiotic resources deployed in these adverts. The study adopts van Dijk’s Social Cognitive Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), complemented by Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s Social Semiotic Theory for analyzing visual and multimodal materials. This study examines the discourse strategies used in the 2024 Edo gubernatorial campaign advertisements by three prominent parties: People’s Democratic Party (PDP), All Progress Party (APC) and Labour Party (LP). Data for this study were collected from three traditional media (Punch, Business Day, and Vanguard) and two social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. Findings reveal that among the different categories available in van Dijk’s approach, the study identified six in the data, which are: Headlines, Polarization, Authority, Burden, Number game, and Victimization. Multimodal analysis further revealed the visual elements employed in the posters of the candidates through direct eye contact, symbolic gestures, and imagery which suggest connectedness, calm tones, rural interactions , accessibility and cultural identity.This study concludes that the 2024 Edo State gubernatorial election is rich in ideological undertones that are both cognitively and visually constructed. Candidates do not just go ahead to persuade the electorate with their speech alone but attention is also based on how they present themselves helps to shape voter’s perception and influence public opinion. van Dijk’s Social Cognitive Model proved effective in uncovering the underlying ideological strategies embedded in campaign speeches, while Kress and van Leeuwen’s Multimodal Discourse Theory illuminated the subtleties of visual communication.
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