2.1Multimodality

The increasing development of technological inventions has enabled the effective use of a combination of semiotic multimodal modes. Multimodality is a field of study that describes how combinations of different semiotic modes (verbal and non-verbal resources) contribute to meaning-making (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen 2006 Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. ). These scholars developed the Visual Grammar paradigm (henceforth VG) in 1996 to analyze images; this paradigm was modified in 2006. They based their framework on Halliday’s (1994)Halliday, Michael 1994 An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 2nd edition. London: Edward Arnold. systemic metafunctions of language: the ideational, the interpersonal, and the textual. In their work, they suggested that any visual representation can be read depending on the three levels of meaning: representational, interactive, and compositional, which are equivalent to Hallidayan three language metafunctions.

The representational metafunction is concerned with depicting the participants, objects, and actions. Therefore, it involves social processes and participants. The social processes can be either narrative or conceptual. The narrative processes refer to the representation of images that display a kind of dynamic processes involving volumes: an actor from which the action emanates and a goal receiving the action. Yet, the processes are realized by vectors that might be formed by something in motion, such as a gesture, gaze, object in motion, arrow, etc. Further, Kress and van Leeuwen (2006)Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen 2006 Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. distinguished between the interactive participants and the represented participants. The former refers to the designer of the image, the photographer, and the audience seeing the image, while the latter refers to the participants sketched in the image. As for the conceptual process, it occurs in images that lack dynamicity; it is static with no vector and mostly represents an abstract idea.

The interactive metafunction displays the social relationship between the represented and the interactive participants. It involves the analysis of contact, social distance, angle, and modality. The contact is related to demand and offer. If the image contains a gaze, it is interpreted as a demand, whereas when it lacks eye contact, it is regarded as an offer. Further, the social distance between the represented participants and the interactive participants depends on the shot adopted to depict the represented participants. Accordingly, an image showing the head and shoulders of the participants denotes a close intimate relationship, while the image that shows the participant as a whole figure indexes a distant relationship. The angle can be frontal or oblique depending on the angle from which the image is captured; it exhibits the viewer’s involvement or detachment from the world of the image. Finally, modality reflects the viewer’s judgment of the image in terms of colors, illumination, and brightness values.

Finally, the compositional metafunction refers to how the elements are organized to each other. This metafunction involves information values, salience, and framing. The pieces of information in an image are arranged in terms of left vs. right, top vs. bottom to reveal new vs. given, and ideal vs. real information, respectively. Nonetheless, Salience relates to how elements are presented to attract the audience, and framing refers to whether the elements are divided by lines or frames that indicate whether the elements belong to the same image and thus carry the same meaning or not.

Regarding mode complementarity, multimodal modes consist of visual and verbal structures, both of which collaborate to point to “particular interpretation of experience and forms of social interaction” (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen 2006 Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. , 2). Thus, a multimodal analysis involves how verbo-visual texts are designed and how the semiotic tools including positioning of elements, colors, framing, posture, focus, and verbal language, simultaneously collaborate and complement one another to contribute to the meaning-making of the whole image. Jewitt (2009)Jewitt, Carey 2009 “An Introduction to Multimodality.” In The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, ed. by Carey Jewitt, 14–27. London: Routledge. points out that language is part of an ensemble of collaborative modes. Each mode affords a particular meaning to what is being communicated. These different modes interact to provide an intermodal complementarity that articulates a particular reading or interpretation.

Royce (2007)Royce, Terry 2007 “Intersemiotic Complementarity: A Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis.” In New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse, ed. by Terry Royce, and Wendy Bowcher, 63–109. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. emphasizes the intersemiotic complementarity between the semiotic elements in multimodal texts. Such a device conveys “a sense of unity, of cooperation, and consistency in terms of the total message it is to convey” (Royce 2007Royce, Terry 2007 “Intersemiotic Complementarity: A Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis.” In New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse, ed. by Terry Royce, and Wendy Bowcher, 63–109. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum., 63). For Al-Momani et al. (2017Al-Momani, Kawakib, Mohammad Badarneh, and Fathi Migdadi 2017 “A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons in Jordan in Light of the Arab Spring.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 30 (1): 63–95. , 9), understanding the complementarity between the different modes in images “plays a crucial role in decoding their messages and appreciating their humor”. Cheong (2004Cheong, Yin 2004 “The Construal of Ideational Meaning in Print Advertisements.” In Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Systemic Functional Perspectives, ed. by Kay L. O’Halloran, 163–195. London: Continuum., 188) views the interrelatedness between the semiotic elements in multimodal texts as a “contextualizing property” (CP), which limits viewers’ interpretive choices or “interpretive space” (IS). He argues that the more CP the text has, the less IS the viewer expects.

2.2Humor in protest discourse

Douglas (1975)Douglas, Mary 1975 Implicit Meanings. London: Rutledge. perceives humor as incongruity, a juxtaposition of two contradictory things happening in a particular situation. In the same vein, Raskin (1985)Raskin, Victor 1985 Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company. thinks that humor emerges at the punch line when two incongruent components are set together. What is expressed in the punch line is in some way incongruent with what is expected. Therefore, humor is derived from the conflict between what the hearer expects to happen and what exactly happens (Schwarz 2010Schwarz, Jeannine 2010 “Linguistic Aspects of Verbal Humor in Stand-up Comedy.” PhD dissertation. Saarland University.); it arises from integrating two incongruous ideas that result in something unexpected or surprising (Martin 2007Martin, Rod 2007 The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Elsevier Academic Press. ).

Through the vehicle of humor, people can express their emotions, vent their feelings, and show their superiority (Morreal 2005Morreal, John 2005 “Humour and the Conduct of Politics.” In Beyond the Joke the Limits of Humour, ed. by Sharon Lockyer, and Michael Pickering, 63–78. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmilla. ; Schwarz 2010Schwarz, Jeannine 2010 “Linguistic Aspects of Verbal Humor in Stand-up Comedy.” PhD dissertation. Saarland University.; Eagleton 2019Eagleton, Terry 2019 Humor. London: Yale University Press.), and it functions as a relief from tension (Mifdal 2016Mifdal, Mohamed 2016 “Digital Politics on Facebook during the Arab Spring in Morocco: Adaptive Strategies of Satire Relative to its Political and Cultural Context.” European Journal of Humor Research 4 (3): 43–60. ). Scott (1990Scott, James 1990 Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. Ann Arbor: Yale University Press., 4) maintains that humor can be thought of as a form of cultural resistance and constitutes “the hidden transcript”, the effect of which is capable not only of forcing regimes to give a few concessions but also of contesting and wearing down them. Such a silent and hidden discourse tends to move from secrecy into public rebelliousness, as was the case during the troubled period and political unrest of the Arab Spring.

In what follows, we provide an overview of the research on political humor as a means of protest and activism in the Arab Spring. Such research illustrates how the humorous discourse has functioned as a form of resistance and how its target and tone have changed over time from secrecy into public defiance in response to the context of the Arab Spring. According to Noelle-Neuman’s (1991Noelle-Neuman, Elizabeth 1991 “The Theory of Public Opinion: The Concept of the Spiral of Silence.” In Communication Yearbook, ed. by James Anderson, 256–287. Newbury Park: Sage. , 271) theory of the “spiral silence”, people avoid expressing their opinion if they feel they are losing ground; thus, they keep silent. This was almost the case before the Arab Spring (2010–February 2011). For example, Mifdal (2016)Mifdal, Mohamed 2016 “Digital Politics on Facebook during the Arab Spring in Morocco: Adaptive Strategies of Satire Relative to its Political and Cultural Context.” European Journal of Humor Research 4 (3): 43–60. points out that, in the beginning, resistance to domination in Morocco was almost disguised because the majority feared not only isolation but also revenge; thus, they were indifferent to politics in general as they thought that “political change would never happen as politicians were deemed corrupt and self-serving” (Mifdal 2016Mifdal, Mohamed 2016 “Digital Politics on Facebook during the Arab Spring in Morocco: Adaptive Strategies of Satire Relative to its Political and Cultural Context.” European Journal of Humor Research 4 (3): 43–60. , 49). This was also the case before the Tunisian Revolution; Tunisians felt suppressed and insecure and were forced to conform to the orders placed on them by the regime. However, the absence of security gave rise to much humor and the creation of funny political situations (Moalla 2013Moalla, Asma 2013 “Tunisian in the Aftermath of the Revolution: Insights into the Use of Humor on Facebook to Create Social Bonds and Develop Relational Identity.” SAGE Open July-September 2013: 1–7., 2015Moalla, Asma 2015 “Incongruity in the Generation and Perception of Humor on Facebook in the Aftermath of the Tunisian Revolution.” Journal of Pragmatics 75: 44–52. ). Mansouri (2013)Mansouri, Nadim 2013 The Sociology of the Internet. Beirut: Muntada Almaarif. points out that although the young were interested in their personal feelings and needs, they also criticized corruption and unemployment issues. As a result, they released some posts with a humorous tone of social corruption. However, they avoided attacking particular targets or using offensive language. Therefore, humor in social media was limited before the Arab Spring although “political humor can open up the space for critics by bringing down the first layer of fear” (Camps-Febrer 2012Camps-Febrer, Blanca 2012 “Political Humor as a Confrontational Tool against the Syrian Regime.” ICIP Working Papers 2012/18 https://​ddd​.uab​.cat​/record​/126331​?ln​=en (accessed 2 June 2022)., 46). This comment was substantiated by studies of Tunisian and Egyptian protests. For example, Moalla (2013)Moalla, Asma 2013 “Tunisian in the Aftermath of the Revolution: Insights into the Use of Humor on Facebook to Create Social Bonds and Develop Relational Identity.” SAGE Open July-September 2013: 1–7. illustrated how humor helped protesters to cope with fear and confusion. Likewise, Egyptian protesters used humor in 2011 to cope with stress and to ridicule the regime in a powerful yet non-violent manner (Helmy and Frerichs 2013Helmy, Mohammed, and Sabine Frerichs 2013 “Stripping the Boss: The Powerful Role of Humour in the Egyptian Revolution 2011.” Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science 47 (4): 450–481. ).

When the Arab Spring broke out, humorous posters started to target actual political figures demanding political change. However, they were reluctant to attack the monarchies and rarely challenged their power as was the case with the royal families in Morocco and Jordan. For example, Barahmeh (2020)Barahmeh, Yousef 2020 “Carnivalesque Politics and Popular Resistance: A Bakhtinian Reading of Contemporary Jordanian Political Humor.” PhD dissertation. University of Portsmouth. found out that the Jordanian people used humor to mock and criticize the government, not the monarch.

Taking advantage of the freedom of opinion, some protesters in other Arab countries pushed the boundaries a little further and vented their anger against the corrupted political systems. Hard activists used other aggressive humorous posts to contest the regimes and attack their undemocratic practices; they raised the famous Arab Spring slogan “The people want to topple the regime”. As a result, they eventually toppled the rulers of some Arab countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and others. For example, Moalla (2015)Moalla, Asma 2015 “Incongruity in the Generation and Perception of Humor on Facebook in the Aftermath of the Tunisian Revolution.” Journal of Pragmatics 75: 44–52. explained how using political humor on Facebook against the Tunisian ex-president, Ben Ali, reduced him to a laughable character and placed him in an inferior unexpected position. They did so because of what he did to his people during the twenty-three years of his presidency. Likewise, Abdelhai (2021)Abdelhai, Nour El-Houda 2021 “A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Impoliteness Strategies in Algerian Hirak Protests.” PhD dissertation. University of Jordan. displayed how the Algerian protesters intentionally used impolite language to offend the regime’s face and express their anger.

2.3Intertextuality

To understand how humor can be generated and accentuated in the posts in question, we need to illustrate the relationship between the linguistic elements in these posts and the socio-cultural and political occasions in other contexts and how these posts make their meanings. Intertextuality alludes to the relationships the poster in question may have with other texts produced on different occasions. We, thus, “make sense of every word, every utterance, or act against the background of (some) other words, utterances, acts of a similar kind” (Lemke 1995Lemke, Jay 1995 Textual Politics: Discourse and Social Dynamics. London: Tayler & Francis., 23). The verbo-visual signs exploited in the construction of a poster may include texts referred to explicitly or implicitly in other socio-cultural contexts (Bhatia 2004Bhatia, Vijay 2004 Worlds of Written Discourse. Lonon: Continuum., 126–127). Most texts are, thus, in an intertextual relationship with others. As Bazerman (2004Bazerman, Charles 2004 “Intertextuality: How Texts Rely on Other Texts”. In What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices, ed. by Charles Bazerman, and Paul Prior, 83–96. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum., 83) argues, “we create our texts out of the sea of former texts that surround us, the sea of language we live in. And we understand the texts of others within that same sea”.

Abu Hatab (2016)Abu Hatab, Wafa 2016 “The Arab Spring: A New Era of Humor Consumption and Production.” International Journal of English Linguistics 6 (3): 70–87. points out that humorous discourse can be further accentuated when the protesters resort to intertextuality to focalize their messages and demands. That is because, by alluding to other texts, we “know what a word means because of its previous uses in particular contexts” (Matheson 2005Matheson, Donald 2005 Media Discourses: Analyzing Media Texts. Maidenhead: Open University Press., 46). Therefore, the analyst should also be aware of what other texts are “relevant to understanding a particular text and what social and cultural power of these texts is, and then how they are articulated in the text” (Matheson 2005Matheson, Donald 2005 Media Discourses: Analyzing Media Texts. Maidenhead: Open University Press., 47). In doing so, the addressees rely on their socio-cultural knowledge to attain the intended effect meant by the text producer. Similarly, Al-Momani et al. (2017)Al-Momani, Kawakib, Mohammad Badarneh, and Fathi Migdadi 2017 “A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons in Jordan in Light of the Arab Spring.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 30 (1): 63–95. indicate that for intertextuality to work, the recipients should have enough socio-cultural repertoire of the origins of the quotations, inserted references, and communicative events embedded in the humorous caricatures they read. Thus, “it is important for advertisers to employ borrowings that derive from values common to the recipient’s cultural context” (Čmejrková 2006Čmejrková, Světla 2006 “Cultural Specifics of Advertising in Czech: Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity”. Linguistica Pragensia (2): 77–92., 2). Accordingly, Al-Momani et al. (2017)Al-Momani, Kawakib, Mohammad Badarneh, and Fathi Migdadi 2017 “A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons in Jordan in Light of the Arab Spring.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 30 (1): 63–95. reported that the intergeneric borrowings used in Jordanian Arabic cartoons were loaded with socio-cultural meanings derived from local Jordanian culture to fulfill various communicative functions. For example, quoting verses from religious discourse serves to create credibility. However, in studying intertextuality in Czech ads, Čmejrková (2006Čmejrková, Světla 2006 “Cultural Specifics of Advertising in Czech: Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity”. Linguistica Pragensia (2): 77–92., 2) found that advertisers sometimes exploited the religiosity and seriousness of other previous texts to create a humorous effect. He points out that “sometimes pretexts which are endowed with highly respected significance are used in the trivial contexts of selling goods and services to develop the communication potential of the advertisements”. Thus, text producers draw on intertextual resources for different purposes and often in different ways (Paltridge 2012Paltridge, Brain 2012 Discourse Analysis: An Introduction. Continuum International Publishing Group. ). Sometimes, writers in different languages and socio-cultural settings utilize intertextual resources differently. For example, Wang (2004)Wang, Wei 2004 “A Contrastive Analysis of Letters to the Editor in Chinese and English.” Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 27: 72–88. found that on the events of September 11, the Chinese authors drew on other intertextual sources, but they did not endorse the views presented in these resources; however, the writers of the English texts position themselves in relation to these resources and endorse the points of view presented in the resources.

The studies reviewed so far have focused on depicting how the oppressed masses utilized humor to reflect their opposition to oppressive power. Most of these studies demonstrated that humor played a significant role in criticizing and condemning the authorities. At the same time, humor functioned as a safety valve by which the discontent masses released their dissatisfaction and anger (Barahmeh 2020Barahmeh, Yousef 2020 “Carnivalesque Politics and Popular Resistance: A Bakhtinian Reading of Contemporary Jordanian Political Humor.” PhD dissertation. University of Portsmouth.). As such, it is evident that adopting humor empowers the protesters’ messages to challenge the power and mobilize the heterogeneous groups. However, the review has also revealed that a dearth of attention has been paid to examining humor from a multimodal perspective in the Arab uprisings. Besides, there have been few studies that have shed light on how the semiotic modes and the socio-cultural and ideological resources collaborate to focalize humor. Therefore, the present study aims to fill in this lacuna.

4.1Analysis of language metafunctions

4.2The role of multimodal mode interaction and intertextual resources in vocalizing humor

The data analysis revealed two major issues. Firstly, the multimodal posters reflected a collaboration between various semiotic modes to produce a verbo-visual representation of humor to articulate the protesters’ communicative purposes. Secondly, these verbo-visual elements are never neutral, but they are borrowed from socio-cultural and ideological resources, which are, in turn, recontextualized to accentuate the sense of humor.

Regarding the first issue, the semiotic mode complementarity has been evident in most posters to vividly characterize Hirak and bring a lifelike image of their movement. For example, in Poster 2, the pictorial image of the man waving the stick to beat the fox, which symbolizes robbery in the Algerian culture, is complemented by the verbal caption Taklou l’blad ah??? (“You robbed the country ah???”), which addresses the ex-regime. This interaction between the verbo-visual elements reflects a comparison between the Algerian protesters’ inclination to oust the regime because of robbing their freedom and provisions, and the man who wants to beat the fox because of robbing his chickens. The same can be said about Poster 4 including Marlboro tobacco-box and the French verbal caption. The punchline in the caption, “Your system is dangerous to our health”, produces a humorous mood and anchors the addressee toward the following humorous pragmatic reading of the verbo-visual poster: “Your regime’s oppression is as dangerous as Marlboro tobacco because both of them spoiled Algerians lives”. Therefore, the verbal and non-verbal data interact to index the system’s deficiency and the protesters’ discontent with the government. This interaction reflects Jewitt’s (2009)Jewitt, Carey 2009 “An Introduction to Multimodality.” In The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, ed. by Carey Jewitt, 14–27. London: Routledge. notion of language as part of an ensemble of collaborative modes, each of which has a particular affordance of meaning within the whole communicative purpose of the message. Consequently, these modes interact to encourage certain interpretations of the posters.

A further illustrative example is Poster 6, which portrays a famous Algerian comedian holding a post with a French caption addressed to the former regime. It reads Faut pas tzid mandat (“You must not bid for another mandate”). The comedian was photographed from an oblique angle to display the viewers’ detachment from the world of the image; this, in turn, reflects the comedian’s constant encouragement of Algerians to detach themselves from the ruling system. Thus, this oblique angle shot is purposively selected to convey the protesters’ firm refusal to prolong the ex-president’s term. Such examples illustrate and further support Royce (2007)Royce, Terry 2007 “Intersemiotic Complementarity: A Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis.” In New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse, ed. by Terry Royce, and Wendy Bowcher, 63–109. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. and Al-Momani et al.’s (2017)Al-Momani, Kawakib, Mohammad Badarneh, and Fathi Migdadi 2017 “A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons in Jordan in Light of the Arab Spring.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 30 (1): 63–95. view concerning the role of the inter-multimodal mode complementarity.

The second major issue is the role of socio-cultural resources that the post designers drew on to convey the connotative meanings of the semiotic elements presented in the posters. The posters’ content can be considered a mirror of the protesters’ socio-cultural background knowledge. Cook (2001Cook, Guy 2001 The Discourse of Advertising, 2nd ed. London: Routledge. , 194) points out that “advertising borrows so many features from other genres that they are in danger of having no separable identity of their own”. To understand the sense of humor in these posters, we need to know the socio-cultural, ideological, and political context the designers drew on to articulate the functions of humor. That is because the constituent elements of the posters are symbolic with connotative meanings that reflect social values, ideologies, and beliefs specific to the Algerian context.

The instances of intertextuality can be attributed to the following sources: religious discourse, folk traditions, popular social media (films, sports, movies), and mundane situations, as shown in Posters 9–12.

Bearing in mind that Algeria is a Muslim state, the designers rely on religious resources by quoting from the Holy Qur’an to legitimize their demands and delegitimize the system’s decisions and actions. Algerians generally abide by Islamic law regarding the allowed and prohibited practices. Accordingly, Poster 9 includes two parts; the first on the right includes an Arabic verbal caption ربي حلل ربعة 5 حرام عليك “Allah allows only four [wives] but prohibits five”. The second part on the left voices the protesters’ rejection of Bouteflika’s candidacy for a fifth term considering it a plain violation of the Algerian constitution, which legitimizes only four terms, but not five. Thus, Poster 9 reflects a salient reuse of the idea of the Islamic polygamy law and links it to the ex-president’s illegal attempt to seek a fifth term. According to the Islamic law of polygamy, Muslim males are allowed to marry four wives only, but not more, following the Quranic verse فانكحوا ما طاب لكم من النساء مثنى وثلاث ورباع’ (Nisa’, verse 03) “Then marry those that please you of [other] women, two or three or four”. Based on this Islamic law, Poster 9 voices the public rejection of Bouteflika’s candidacy for a fifth term considering it a plain violation of the Algerian constitution, which legitimizes only four terms, but not five. The salience of the poster resides in the Arabic verbal caption ربي حلل ربعة 5 حرام عليك “Allah allows only four [wives] but prohibits five”. Hence, the reference to the protesters’ religious affiliation enables viewers to understand what the quoted verbal caption means because of its previous use in religious contexts (Matheson 2005Matheson, Donald 2005 Media Discourses: Analyzing Media Texts. Maidenhead: Open University Press.). Drawing upon Algerian viewers’ religious affiliation, the poster designer utilized this religious quotation to motivate the protesters to ban the presidential election. They humorously criticized Bouteflika’s incoming presidential candidacy, comparing its danger to violating the Islamic Shari’a laws. Such an intertextual religious reference agrees with Al-Momani et al.’s (2017)Al-Momani, Kawakib, Mohammad Badarneh, and Fathi Migdadi 2017 “A Semiotic Analysis of Political Cartoons in Jordan in Light of the Arab Spring.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 30 (1): 63–95. finding on the function of religious captions in Jordanian Arabic cartoons.

Other posters demonstrate borrowing instances from the Algerian folk tradition discourse to accentuate the protesters’ striving for democracy and change. For example, the man waving a stick to beat the fox in Poster 2 is related to Algerian folk traditions. This image is a simulation of a YouTube video that went virally on Algerian social media platforms in 2015 of an old man beating a fox that ate his chickens. Since the fox connotes a roguish, tricky, and fraudulent person, according to Algerian traditions, it is plausible to assume that the poster designer chose the fox to mirror the system’s robbery and misappropriation of the public fund. Furthermore, this instance humorously voices the Algerian humiliation of the regime and highlights the protesters’ determination to oust the corrupt system.

By the same token, Poster 10 consists of three main components: a glue stick, BOUTELSIKA, and the Arabic caption “the super glue that lasts 20 years”. BOUTELSIKA is a coined compound word consisting of two morphemes; Boute stands for the first part of the ex-president’s name, Bouteflika, and lsika is a free morpheme borrowed from colloquial Arabic, meaning ‘adhesive stick’. This poster showcases an innovative reproduction of the Arabic lexical item, lsika, whose meaning has been extended in Algerian folk tradition to describe an unwelcome ostracized person among a given group. This kind of person is described as an adhesive person who is too difficult to get rid of. Thus, the generation of humor in Poster 10 is made by using wordplay. The poster designer cleverly coupled the first part, Boute, of the ex-president’s name, ‘Bouteflika’ (the butt of the humor), and the Arabic word, lsika ‘adhesive stick’, to coin the new name, Boutelsika, to poke fun at the ex-president because he had ruled Algeria for twenty years and he wanted to stay in office for a fifth term. This coined term indexes acerbic criticism of the ex-president entourage and places them in a humiliated position. It also connotes the public’s intention to distance themselves from the authorities, who are considered parasitic out-group members.

On a related note, the poster designers also referred to mundane situations to create a humorous effect and articulate their demands for radical change. By way of illustration, Poster 11 consists of a ‘Tefal frying pan’, and the verbal caption:

باش الرئيس الجديد مايلصقش, Tefal الشعب يطالب بكرسي رئاسي من نوع’ (“People demand a Tefal presidential chair so that the new president does not stick”)

The designer of this poster refers to kitchen non-stick cookware sets used in casual situations. The verbal caption of this poster calls upon the viewer’s repertoire of the well-known Algerian Tefal manufacturing company to recognize the similarity between the unwelcome ex-president and the undesirable food that sticks in the cooking utensils. Therefore, this caption indexes the protesters’ exasperation with the long governmental period of Bouteflika, which is implicitly hinted at in demanding a non-stick presidential chair from Tefal company. Hence, this message accentuates the protesters’ reprimand of the ex-president’s long-ruling era, which humorously matches the undesirable food that sticks on utensils. Thus, utilizing humorous posters to voice the protesters’ humiliation of the regime goes in line with Pearce and Hajizada’s (2014)Pearce, Katy, and Adnan Hajizada 2014 “No Laughing Humor as a Means of Dissent in the Digital Era: The Case of Authoritarian Azerbaijan.” The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 22 (1): 67–85. findings regarding the efficacy of humor as an effective medium by which Azerbaijanis criticize the authorities, confront the power, and attract attention towards their dissent.

Borrowing from popular social media (e.g., films, sports, movies), the designer, in Poster 12, exhibits the Algerian comedian ‘Hadj Abderrahmane’, who is known for his role as Inspector Tahar, and his reproduced Arabic quote, اوتس المرسيدس شفتها اوتس بوتفليقة لي ما شفتوش , “I have seen the Mercedes; it is Bouteflika whom I have not seen”. This utterance is extracted from the comedian film عطلة المفتش طاهر , The Holiday of Inspector Tahar; the inspector was once stopped by the police officers and asked why he violated the allowed speed. He replied in a funny way that he saw the sign of the permitted speed, but he did not see the police officers. This poster is a criticism of the ex-president’s absence due to his ailing health and inability to be in charge of the presidential office. Accordingly, the poster designer purposefully mimicked inspector Tahar’s humorous quote to draw the viewers’ attention toward questioning the president’s absence and to reflect their suspicion regarding the president’s ailing health and ability to run the presidential office. Adopting this quote suggests that the designer intends to mock and expose the regime’s lies regarding the false information they release about the president’s health conditions.

A further example is borrowed from Algerian popular sports. Poster 7 portrays the Algerian sports commentator, Hafid Derradji; a quotation from one of his famous comments, لا يا سيدي الحكم , “No, Mr. referee”, on the left; and the referee on the right holding a post that reads “We will have one more year as stoppage time”. Derradji usually says, “No, Mr. referee” when he thinks the referee issues an unexpected or illogical decision. The representativeness of this poster is depicted in borrowing the commentator’s utterance to reflect the protesters’ unwavering refusal of the referee’s decision to prolong the ex-president’s control for another year because they consider it illegal. In a similar fashion, the post designer aimed to show the protesters’ opposition to the system’s suggestion (i.e., the target of humor) to extend the president’s mandate for another term.

On these grounds, it appears that Hirak’s posters and slogans are basically driven by the designer’s inclination to expose the regime in a humorous but still firm manner. Therefore, to create a humorous effect and to meet these purposes, the poster designers produced verbo-visual posts loaded with instances of intertextuality borrowed from other socio-cultural and ideological genres that are successfully recontextualized to produce new contextualized and effective memorable posts.