Abstract
This study provides a critical discourse analysis of election advertisements in Jordanian society before and after the political uprisings in the Arab world, referred to as the “Arabic Spring”, which started in 2011. It is argued here that these events have left traces on political advertisement. This study aims to uncover the shifts in discourse that have occurred in election advertisements since 2011. To this end, a sum of 150 advertisements from three election campaigns 2007, 2010 and 2013 was collected from different media sources during the campaigns of those elections. The data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The analysis showed that the advertisements of 2013 elections manifested different strategies, addressing mostly sociopolitical issues, compared to the other two elections which showed little political concern and focused on socio-economic issues. It is hoped that this study will contribute to cross cultural understanding, multimodality and critical discourse analysis.
Highlights
The present study is an extension to a previous study by the researcher (Al-Momani 2012) which investigated the schematic representations in 2007 election advertisements in Jordan
Since the main concern of this study is to investigate the shifts in the language of advertisement in 2013 elections, it provides an interpretation of meanings and relates them with social change
The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the uprisings and political movements which started in the spring of 2011 in the Arab world on election advertisements in Jordan
Summary
The present study is an extension to a previous study by the researcher (Al-Momani 2012) which investigated the schematic representations in 2007 election advertisements in Jordan. The political scene in the Arab world has witnessed dramatic fluctuations in the last few years These fluctuations have recently taken the form of revolutions that aim to lead to a kind of transition which construes changes from more dictatorships to more democratic systems. In Syria, the situation has been tragic for almost three years and a situation of civil war has been created These uprisings have been called the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring is seen as the representation of the public feelings and desires to achieve democracy, exactly like the European widespread revolutions of 1848 which were known as the “Springtime of People” that were essentially democratic (Merriman 1996), and the liberalization movements in Czechoslovakia after World War II, known as “Prague Spring” which were a strong attempt to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia
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