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Qasim Adeyemi ALIU
Department of General Studies, Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko, Delta State, Nigeria
Email: qaliu87@gmail.com
HTTP://DOI.ORG/10.33234/SSR.10.5
Abstract
This study examines visual narratives of police brutality in Nigeria, with a view to revealing their ideological potentials and strategic functions. Seven purposively selected cartoons drawn from the social media were investigated using critical multimodality with insights from the speech act theory. The descriptive analysis revealed that two broad ideological strategies – demonisation of SARS and intensification of victims’ innocence – were used to foreground SARS officers’ power abuse in order to instigate the #EndSARS protests. To legitimate the protests, the officers were denigrated through emphasis on their negative acts and generic depiction in connection with gaze and pose that suggested insincerity, fear and unprofessionalism. Also, victims’ innocence was accentuated through the foregrounding of their professions, metaphor, symbols, colour and gaze and pose that suggested sincerity and confidence. The texts realised directive speech acts. The study concludes that visuals are ideological constructs that can instigate resistance against social injustice and oppression.
Keywords: multimodality, police brutality, nonviolent resistance, #EndSARS, Nigeria