Discourse Analysis of Semiotic Resources in Newspaper Political Campaign Advertisements of Select Candidates for the 2019 Elections in Nigeria

Abstract

This study focused on newspaper political campaign advertisements of select candidates for the 2019 general elections in Nigeria with the aim of analysing the semiotic resources in the newspaper political campaign advertisements of the select candidates. The specific objectives were to: determine how personality profiling served as semiotic resource in the 2019 elections campaign advertisements of the APC candidate of Lagos State, Nigeria as well as examine the use of color as a semiotic resource in the 2019 elections campaign advertisements of the APC gubernatorial candidates of Lagos and Abia States, Nigeria among others. The Social Semiotic Theory was adopted as the theoretical framework for the study. Data for this study were drawn from newspaper advertisements in three national dailies: The Punch, Daily Sun and The Vanguard newspapers. The newspapers were published between December 2018 and February 2019. Three (3) advertisements were purposively selected for this study owing to the several semiotic resources in them. The data were analyzed using the Discourse Analysis approach. The analysis revealed personality profiling of the APC gubernatorial candidate of Lagos State based on his educational qualification, experience and popularity. It also showed that color, image placement, attire and handshakes were also semiotic resources found in the newspaper political campaign advertisements of the select candidates in the 2019 general elections in Nigeria. Green and red were identified to be instrumental in communicating growth, light and love. Based on the findings, it was recommended that further study be carried out to uncover the communicative elements in political campaign advertisements in Nigeria newspapers