Decoding the 2017 Presidential Election Campaign Posters in Kenya

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the 2017 presidential election posters in Kenya from a critical media studies approach. The study employed semiotic analysis approach to identify and analyse the various signifiers and their signifieds. The study’s main objective was to establish the meanings encoded in the 2017 Jubilee and National Super Alliance presidential election posters. The specific objectives were to investigate how the posters were crafted to appeal to the voters, to investigate the hidden meanings embedded in the posters and to establish the presidential candidates’ ideological differences and similarities in the posters. The study employed exploratory research design which used qualitative method that is semiotic analysis. The main theory used in the study was Stuart Hall’s Encoding Decoding model, which theorises how audience read messages as preferred reading, oppositional reading and negotiated reading. The data was thematically analysed and presented in a narrative form. The study found that the parties crafted their posters professionally to appeal to their voters for ease of identification by their followers; the strategy was effective in attracting the targeted voters however the emphasis on visual attraction overshadowed the attention to the content of the posters. The embedded hidden meaning was illusion of many in the case of Jubilee to show that they had a huge following while the National Super Alliance presented a picture of the people representatives while portraying the leading opponent as a failure that needed to be replaced. The ideological difference was that the National Super Alliance projected a social transformation and liberation of the masses while the Jubilee presented an ideology of continuity portraying itself as being a safe pair of hands and can be trusted once more. The study recommends use of neutral colors so as to shift the attention back to the content of the posters. Voter literacy is key towards enabling the electorate to decode the hidden meaning in the posters. Finally, the study recommends that the parties should craft posters which communicate specific ideology so as to prevent ambiguities in the understanding of the messages conveyed in the posters.