Lebanese political advertising and the dialogic emergence of signs

Diane Riskedahl

This paper evaluates the role of written language in the construction of difference by looking at the emergence of two political advertising campaigns in Lebanon in 2006-2007. I will discuss how ad campaigns mounted by opposing Lebanese political factions were engaged in a battle over representing popular sentiment. Specific choices of typography, juxtaposition of codes, layout and physical placement of ads within the political landscape of urban Beirut all directly contributed to creating unique interdiscursive ideological framings for each party coalition. Due to the inter-sectarian nature of the political coalitions, the use of religious symbols was problematic in the construction of coalition identity. Other differentiating aspects such as class, patterns of consumption, and attitudes towards mourning became elemental in the creation of political distinctions and were indexically configured into this dialogue of signs.

Quick links
A browser-friendly version of this article is not yet available. View PDF
al-Batal, Mahmoud
(2007) Identity and language tension in Lebanon: The Arabic of local news at LBCI. In A. Rouchdy (ed.), Language Contact and Language Conflict in Arabic: Variations on a Sociolinguistic Theme. Curzon Arabic Linquistic Series . New York: Routledge, pp. 89-115.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
AFP Beirut
(2008) Ads with an agenda: Lebanon’s battle of the billboards. March 31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Agha, Asif
(2005) Voice, footing and enregisterment. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15.1: 38-59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Angermeyer, Philipp
(2005) Spelling bilingualism: Script choice in Russian American classified ads and signage. Language in Society 34.4: 493-531.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barton, David
(1994) Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language. Oxford: Blackwell.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barton, David, and Mary Hamilton
(2005) Literacy, reification and the dynamics of social interaction. In D. Barton, and K. Tusting (eds.), Beyond communities of practice: Language, power and social context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 14-35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Besnier, Niko
(1999) Literacy. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9.1-2: 141-143.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary, and Kira Hall
(2004) Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research. Language in Society 33: 469-515.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Butters, Andrew
(2007) Lebanon poster politics. Time Magazine Middle East Blog. Posted January 18 2007.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collins, James
(1995) Literacy and literacies. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 75-93.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collins, James, and Stef Slembrouck
(2007) Reading shop windows in globalized neighborhoods: Multilingual literacy and indexicality. Journal of Literacy Research 39.3: 335-356. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deeb, Lara
(2008) Exhibiting the ‘just-lived past’: Hizbullah’s nationalist narratives in transnational political context. Comparative Studies in Society and History 50.2: 369-399. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daveluy, M., and J. Ferguson
(2009) Scripted urbanity in the Canadian north. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 19: 78–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope
(2006) Communities of practice. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frekko, Susan
(2009) Signs of respect: Neighborhood, public, and language in Barcelona. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 19.2: 227-245. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gal, S., and K. Woolard
(2001) Constructing languages and publics: Authority and representation. In S. Gal, and K. Woolard (eds.), Languages and Publics: The making of authority. Manchester: St. Jerome, pp. 2-12.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hustwit, Gary
(2007) Helvetica. London: Swiss Dots, Ltd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Irvine, J., and S. Gal
(2000) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language: ideologies, polities, and identities. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press, pp. 35-83.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khalaf, Samir, and Philip Khoury
(1993) Recovering Beirut: Urban design and post-war reconstructions. Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East Vol. 47. New York: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khatib, Lina
(2007) Television and public action in the Beirut Spring. In N. Sakr (ed.), Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life. London: IB Tauris, pp. 28-43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
LaDousa, Chaise
(2002) Advertising in the periphery: Languages and schools in a North Indian city. Language in Society 31: 213-242.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McElhinney, Bonnie
(2010) The audacity of affect: Gender, race and history in linguistic accounts of legitimacy and belonging. Annual Review of Anthropology 39: 309-328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazzarella, William
(2003) “Very Bombay” contending with the global in an Indian advertising agency. Cultural Anthropology 18.1: 33-71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peteet, Julie
(1996) The writing on the walls: The graffiti of the Intifada. Cultural Anthropology 11.2: 139-159. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Safa, Oussama
(2006) Lebanon springs forward. Journal of Democracy 17.1: 22-37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scollon, Ron
(1998) Mediated discourse as social interaction: A study of news discourse. Language in Social Life Series. London: Longman.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shaban, Kassim, and Ghazi Ghaith
(2002) Research notes: University students’ perceptions of the ethnolinguistic vitality of Arabic, French and English in Lebanon. Journal of Sociolinguistics 6.4: 557-574. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
(2003) Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication 23.3-4: 193–229.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sukarieh, Mayssoun
(2007) We love life whenever we can. Electronic Lebanon 5 Jan 2007 http://​electronicintifada​.net​/v2​/article6364​.shtml (last accessed June 10, 2009)
(2012) The hope crusades: Culturalism and reform in the Arab world. Political and Legal Anthropology Review 35.1: 115-134. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traboulsi, Fawwaz
(2008) Lebanon on the brink. In N. Hovsepian (ed.), The War on Lebanon: A reader. Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press, pp. 349-357.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, Geoffry
(1991) Emotional remembering: The pragmatics of national memory. Ethnos 27.4: 505-552.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wimmers, Heiko
(2007) Rallying around the renegade. Middle East Report. August 27.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn
(1998) Introduction: Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In B. Schieffelin, K. Woolard, and P. Kroskrity (eds.), Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-47.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
 
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue