Space, Language and Power: The Rhetoric of Street Protests
Journal
Социолошки преглед
Date Issued
2015
Author(s)
Bekar Mira
Abstract
This paper explores the rhetoric of street protest banners and slogans used
as a means of performing dissatisfaction and the role of the street where a network of relationships
is built among actors with unequal power and with shared beliefs about specific social
situations. Drawing upon Berns’ (1995: 195) view that “for the 21st century people, English
serves a wider range of purposes, well beyond face-to-face contact through mass communication
and media, including print, audio-visual, and electronic media, than ever before
in history”, and Bourdieu’s (1989) discussion on the symbolic struggles over the perception
of the social worlds, this paper focuses on the relationship between the use of English, as a
means for communicating dissatisfaction at a global level, and the street, used as a medium
for performing joint social action. The language and visual rhetoric of protest slogans and
banners written in English were analyzed using the principles of visual rhetoric for the purposes
of this study. The local contexts included Iran, Serbia, Macedonia, and Ukraine. This exploratory
study shows how local historical and political imagery and the sense of belonging
to the world-wide social and political processes are negotiated.
as a means of performing dissatisfaction and the role of the street where a network of relationships
is built among actors with unequal power and with shared beliefs about specific social
situations. Drawing upon Berns’ (1995: 195) view that “for the 21st century people, English
serves a wider range of purposes, well beyond face-to-face contact through mass communication
and media, including print, audio-visual, and electronic media, than ever before
in history”, and Bourdieu’s (1989) discussion on the symbolic struggles over the perception
of the social worlds, this paper focuses on the relationship between the use of English, as a
means for communicating dissatisfaction at a global level, and the street, used as a medium
for performing joint social action. The language and visual rhetoric of protest slogans and
banners written in English were analyzed using the principles of visual rhetoric for the purposes
of this study. The local contexts included Iran, Serbia, Macedonia, and Ukraine. This exploratory
study shows how local historical and political imagery and the sense of belonging
to the world-wide social and political processes are negotiated.
Subjects
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