A pragma-semiotic analysis of ‘Occupy Nigeria Group’ online posts on the 2012 fuel subsidy removal in Nigeria

Abstract

In response to the fuel subsidy removal by the Nigerian government on 1st January 2012, Occupy Nigeria Group, a protest movement, embarked on different mass strike actions and demonstrations including online activism. The civil resistant actions geared towards reversal of petrol pump price increase deployed certain verbal and visual means in portraying the government and its actions. Previous studies on online protest discourse in Nigeria have adopted sociolinguistic and discourse analysis approaches in examining issues of identity and selfdetermination with little attention paid to visual-pragmatic strategies in representing people and their actions. This article, therefore, undertakes a pragma-semiotic investigation of 'Occupy Nigeria Group' online posts on the 2012 fuel subsidy removal in Nigeria with a view to examining verbal and visual modes of representing people and their actions in the event. Seventy-two online protest posts purposively sampled from the groups' page are used to identify and categorize various pragma-semiotic elements and functions in the representations using insights from Mey's (2001) pragmatic act and Kress and van Leeuwen's ( 2006) multimodal discourse analysis. It is observed that the verbal mode complements the visual in projecting the demands and resistance of the group. The posts which are classified under six semantic fields, namely divine intervention, security consciousness, innovation, exaggeration, defamation and abusive placards have various visual-pragmatic strategies such as prayer, negative labelling, humour, mockery, abuse, passionate and fierce appeal, including photo trick. The strategies correspond to the dominant pragmatic acts such as demonstrative, assertive, suppository, condoling and stipulating. All these acts are presented within the Nigerian sociopolitical and linguistic context.

Visual Images Associated With Reporting about Biodegradables in Nigerian Newspapers

“…This shows that the reporter and publishers intended for the audience to see the images before reading the text of the news. Omolabi and Durosimi (2017), and Igwebuike, Abioye and Chimuanya (2016) informed us earlier about the influence of picture position in the news and its importance in drawing the reader's attention to the issue being raised, it gives significance and prestige to the information being relayed or the person it portrays before the audience reads the texts. It performs the function of preview to what to expect in the news or the direction of coverage.…”

“…In this case, the agency has the mandate to ensure that manufacturers use packaging that is not harmful to humans, animals and the environment. As highlighted by Igwebuike, Abioye and Chimuanya (2016), that images are most often "edited" and modified to suit users' need or editorial policies before publication. The image displaying the logo of NAFDAC was edited for the same purpose, the readers understand that at the heart of the discussion would be the requirement for NAFDAC approval for the use and adoption of biodegradables by any food and drug company in Nigeria.…”

The Local Context for Organizing in Nigeria

“…6). Oil has also remained a key rallying point for political and economic tensions in the country including the 1967 civil war, nationwide strikes such as the one against the 2012 oil subsidy removal (Abutu, 2014;Igwebuike, Abioye, & Chimuanya, 2016), and civil unrest such as militancy, oil pipeline vandalism and kidnappings in the Niger Delta region. All these continue to contribute to very high costs of running business and instability that culminated in the 2016 recession.…”