A discursive-images analysis of political posters in Sandinista Nicaragua (1979-1990)

Abstract

In July 1979 the Popular Revolution in Nicaragua, led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), became victorious. The first years after the revolutionary insurrection were marked by the implementation of a broad program of social transformations. The struggles and experiences built throughout the 1980s, which marked the construction of a new identity and everyday culture in Sandinista Nicaragua, were promoted and recorded through posters that presented or disseminated values and ideas for the new times to come. The graphic documents that illustrated the political-cultural awakening of the Nicaraguan people reveal the challenges faced and the achievements obtained in their struggle for the right of self-determination and for the conduct of a process of revolutionary transformation of society. In this sense, the objective of this article was to carry out a discursive-imagery analysis of the production of political posters in Sandinista Nicaragua during the 1980s, verifying how a discursive-ideological formation centered on the exaltation of nationalism constituted itself as a driving force for the advancement of the objectives of the Nicaraguan revolution. As a result, we found that the graphic posters used in the context of the great campaigns of the Sandinista government were constituted as communicative practices of ideological propaganda and fulfilled an educational and politicizing function, as well as popular mobilization in defense of the Revolution.