Philip Seargeant, Korina Giaxoglou, & Frank Monaghan's collaborative work, Political activism in the linguistic landscape, offers a profound exploration of the relationship between language, political activism, and public space. The book looks at how the linguistic landscape is used as a resource for political activism, exploring the ethical considerations and limitations of language-based activism and investigating the role of context in interpreting political messages. In general, its aim is to contribute to the broader understanding of political activism and its impact.
The authors dissect the semiotic strategies employed by Led by Donkeys, a group of four political activists with a diverse background in both direct political action and advertising. Originating from a shared concern about the implications of Brexit, they developed a distinctive approach to activism. Their core technique involves juxtaposing past statements made by politicians with current events, effectively subjecting them to public scrutiny and critique. This method serves as a form of political satire, succinctly exposing inconsistency or hypocrisy among political leaders. While initially focused on anti-Brexit sentiments, Led by Donkeys has broadened its scope to highlight broader issues concerning the integrity of liberal democracy. Their work underscores the importance of holding politicians accountable and challenging the erosion of democratic values in contemporary politics.
The operation of Led by Donkeys serves as a case study to analyse the general strategies used in grassroots political protest. The book is structured around a set of keywords that are alphabetically arranged. Several key ideas stand out among the twenty-two sections. According to the authors, ‘accountability’ represents an ethical responsibility of governing authorities to act in the best interests of their constituents, while ‘hypocrisy’ underscores the result of violating the pact between word and action, becoming evident when holding individuals accountable. These themes are further examined when discussing activist strategies aimed at enhancing accountability and unveiling hypocrisy within the political community. Additionally, the significance of controlling the narrative is highlighted, emphasising the accepted version of events as the prevailing ‘common-sense’ explanation for the occurrences unfolding within society.
Among the sections that delve into more linguistic matters, one particularly interesting aspect is the exploration of intertextuality. Here, a comprehensive perspective is provided on the concepts of ‘intertextualisation’, ‘entextualisation’, and ‘recontextualisation’ as fundamental elements in discourse creation. Alongside ‘juxtaposition’, these strategies prove to be highly effective for generating new meanings within discourse.
This graphic novel also aims to explore alternative ways of communicating research results outside of the stricture of academic writing. It features illustrations by Seargeant that accompany the text and offer a multimodal perspective on a research object that is multimodal by nature. This strategy allows the book to broaden its target audience towards a more informative character, with a style that is more accessible to people outside of academia.
