Abstract
This article explores the communicative acts employed in the creation of HIV/AIDS posters which focus on people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and their relatives/friends and investigates the generic structure of these posters. Van Leeuwen’s multimodal communicative acts and Yuen’s Generic Structure Potential of printed advertisements serve as the theoretical framework for the study. The data include six purposively selected HIV/AIDS posters which focus on educating and counselling PLWHA, obtained from two state hospitals in south-western Nigeria. The multimodal communicative acts include those of instructing, advising, beckoning, encouraging, warning and informing. Lead, Emblem, Announcement and Enhancer are obligatory elements while Display, Tag and Call-and-Visit Information are optional elements. The study shows that there is heavy reliance on semiotic resources which signal the intended meaning of the producers of the posters.
Keywords
Introduction
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic is one which affects people irrespective of age, gender, class and religion and poses socio-economic challenges to societies and communities. Governmental and non-governmental organisations have employed different measures in mitigating the impact of the disease. In Nigeria, about 3.6% of the population is already living with HIV/AIDS, which means that an estimated 3.3 million people are positive, while an estimated 75,000 babies are reported to be born with HIV each year with and about 360,000 children becoming infected through their mothers (AVERT, 2011a). It has been reported that about 300,000 new infections occur each year in Nigerians aged 15–24, which amounts to 60% of all new infections. It has also been reported that an estimated 30% of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Nigeria who need antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) have access to them (AVERT, 2011a).
In Nigeria, a number of public awareness/sensitisation campaigns on HIV/AIDS have been carried out by different bodies such as the Federal and State Ministries of Health, the Federal Ministry of Information and government agencies such as the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) amongst others (NACA, 2012). These have been supported by international organisations such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Global Fund and the World Bank. Campaign tools used by these agencies include television and radio jingles, talk show programmes, drama presentations, newspaper adverts, posters, billboards and handbills. Although many of the messages of these campaigns focus on prevention, it is only in recent times that there has been an increasing focus on messages that educate and encourage PLWHA. A notable organisation that attends to this includes the Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Nigeria (NEPWHAN), which is an agency that provides support for PLWHA (NEPWHAN, 2012). Considering the number of PLWHA in Nigeria, there is a need to focus more on the resources that can help PLWHA live longer and stay healthy.
Scholars have studied the HIV/AIDS discourse from sociological perspectives (Greene et al., 2002), psychological perspectives (Holt and Stephenson, 2006) and religious perspectives (Adogame, 2007), and have carried out media studies on the discourse (Chanda et al., 2008; Newman et al., 2006). Most linguistic studies have concentrated on campaigns that deal with preventative measures, but have not focused on how PLWHA can cope with the disease (e.g. Braxen and Breidlid, 2004; Graffigna and Olson, 2009; Rohleder and Swartz, 2009). Although Banda and Oketch (2011) analysed HIV/AIDS posters in Kenya, these have been subsumed into a larger study which focuses on general HIV/AIDS discourse. The authors also did not consider the generic structure of the posters. Linguistic studies that focus on PLWHA have carried out conversational analysis of pharmacist–patient interactions in HIV/AIDS clinics in South Africa (Watermayer and Penn, 2009) and post-structuralist discourse analysis of the narratives of HIV-related organisations in India (Finn and Sarangi, 2009). These have not analysed HIV/AIDS posters that focus on PLWHA, especially in Nigeria from the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis.
Linguistic studies on the discourse in Nigeria have paid considerable attention to the names given to HIV/AIDS (e.g. Ekpenyong, 2008; Komolafe, 2010), to the communicative effectiveness of the use of language in the campaigns (e.g. Oluwabamide and Jegede, 2008; Raj, 2008), to the dramatic and persuasive techniques used in HIV/AIDS radio programmes (e.g. Adegoju, 2010) and affixes that relate to HIV/AIDS discourses (e.g. Asiyanbola, 2010). Most of these linguistic studies have concentrated on preventative measures rather than coping strategies needed by PLWHA. Thus, this article examines the multimodal communicative acts in HIV/AIDS posters which focus on PLWHA and their relatives/friends in south-western Nigeria, and describes the Generic Structure Potential (GSP) of the posters. This is needed in order to understand the discourse strategies and communicative resources employed by the producers of these texts to reach PLWHA. The study is also necessary considering the need to address the issues that affect PLWHA, such as HIV-related stigma (Visser and Forsyth, 2009), problems associated with the need for PLWHA to attend HIV/AIDS clinics (Watermayer and Penn, 2009) and the long-term use of HIV/AIDS drugs (Newman et al., 2009).
Outdoor advertising and posters as campaign tools
Outdoor advertising is that peculiarly pervasive form of advertising that fills public space, preventing any escape from it (Molina, 2006). Scholars such as Lee (2006), Opeibi (2007) and Okanlawon and Oluga (2008) have worked on the language of advertising, paying attention to all other media forms of advertising except outdoor prints. Previous scholars have paid little attention to outdoor adverts and this makes it difficult to have a balanced overview of all the media in which advertising takes place. This is why Molina (2006) argues that ‘outdoor advertising is a significant medium that deserves attention in its own right, especially the way its “audience” is constructed as a public through discourses of “the public interest” and “social responsibility”’.
According to Ajayi (2005), outdoor print adverts give an involuntary opportunity to the public to see them and this makes it the most accessible and simplest form of advertising, as the public do not have to pay before being exposed to it. This is not so with other media like television, radio, newspaper, internet and cinema where exposure is contingent upon ownership or admission fee. Outdoor advertising is a rich research area as it captures and reflects the value system of any society as well as its ideological beliefs. Outdoor adverts seem to have some real and tangible benefits for the general populace as they have wider coverage and greater local reach. They can be posted, distributed and mounted in public space in every neighbourhood, urban as well as rural. Examples include posters, handbills and billboards.
Posters are outdoor adverts that are handy for use, especially in public spaces like hospitals, health centres, schools, etc., in order to create awareness about a product, a service or an event. Since posters are displayed in public space, depicting the participants represented on them as public, it would then be appropriate for posters to be classified as part of outdoor adverts. HIV/AIDS posters serve as outdoor campaign tools that speak to a large number of people and are not confined to specific locations. They can be posted on walls or boards in hospitals, schools and other public buildings, and not necessarily in HIV/AIDS clinics. Thus, they can speak to relatives, friends and acquaintances of PLWHA who are not attending HIV/AIDS clinics. They therefore serve as effective educative and counselling tools by the different bodies that create them.
Multimodal discourse analysis
Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) is concerned with how different semiotic systems complement one another in the creation of meaning (Matthiessen, 2007; Vovilas et al., 2010). These semiotic systems are usually referred to as multimodal resources and are effective tools for achieving communicative goals. The enterprise of discovering the intended meaning of the addresser in communicative events or interpreting any code has gone beyond just language use alone; all other materials like colour, font, images and icons employed in a communicative event must interact before one can arrive at a comprehensive interpretation and meaning of the communicative event. Although verbal language is important and unique in the expression of meanings, depending solely on it cannot enhance a comprehensive description and interpretation of a multimodal text.
There are two major approaches to the study of MDA: the contextual approach of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) and the grammatical approach of O’Toole (2010). Both approaches are based on Michael Halliday’s socio-semiotic approach to text, society and culture (see O’Halloran, 2011). Other approaches include Scollon, Scollon and Norris’s multimodal interactional analysis, developed from mediated discourse analysis, and Forceville’s cognitive approach to multimodal metaphor which is based on cognitive linguistics (O’Halloran, 2011).
Different aspects of human endeavour have proven to be such enabling fields through which multimodal resources have been well utilised and the field of medical discourse is not left behind. Since the main goal of communication is to ensure proper dissemination of information in order for the addressee to grasp the intended message of the addressers, it becomes imperative that people use different modes of communication within their reach to convey their messages to their listeners and viewers. The present study is, therefore, concerned with how these multimodal resources have been effectively utilised on posters by health educators in HIV/AIDS, in order to affectionately communicate their intended goals to PLWHA and conjure up a picture of a positive and better life to all through certain communicative strategies deployed on the posters. In view of this, we describe some outdoor posters on PLWHA using Van Leeuwen’s (2005) multimodal theory of communicative acts and Yuen’s (2004) GSP for print advertisements, in order to identify different communicative strategies employed by the producer of the text and explore certain nuances of meaning that would not be clear from the linguistic text alone.
Multimodal communicative acts: An interaction between visual and verbal devices
A multimodal communicative act is a semiotic concept that accounts for all modes in a communicative event. It incorporates the linguistic features of a text which are usually regarded as speech acts, and non-linguistic features like images, symbols, pictures and colours. According to Van Leeuwen (2005), the concept of a communicative act is not only concerned with representation, but also with a deliberate use of all the communication modes to signal something. For Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006: 121), it is not only linguistic representations that are used to either ‘offer’ or place a demand. In their view, speech functions can be extended to images. Hence, Van Leeuwen believes that images can also ‘offer’ or ‘demand’. For example, a picture of two men speaking, with things coming out of the mouth of one to the other, is a representative act (using Searle (1969)’s terminology) informing the viewer that germs can be transmitted through the air from one person to another. These two functions, speech functions and image functions, are subsumed in multimodal communicative acts for a thorough interpretation of a text. These two functions are depicted in posters as it is obvious that producers of these posters utilise various modes of communication, namely iconic images, colour, signs and linguistic features, to create a communicative event to persuade their target audience. Communicative acts are also concerned with how the connotations of semiotic resources associate with one another in signalling the intended meaning of the text producers. The communicative act is broader in scope and more technical, since it demonstrates how images and text as well as every other semiotic resource blend in a communicative event. It also accommodates discourse features such as dialogue, allusion, facial expressions, gestures, etc. which help the addresser to achieve his or her communicative intent.
The Generic Structure of print advertisements
Generic Structure is a model that is used in the identification of recurring patterns for organising the content of a genre and the relation of these patterns to specific linguistic features (Bruce, 2009). Generic Structure Potential (GSP), a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) model, considers the interaction between linguistic patterns and context in its description of any genre. The GSP expresses the total range of optional, iterative and obligatory elements and their order in the text. Halliday and Hasan (1989) make use of notations such as round brackets ( ) to indicate the optionality of enclosed elements and the caret sign (^) to show the sequence of the elements. Thus, it is possible to state the GSP of any genre. Each text may have a different actual structure, but each realises a possibility built into its GSP. In view of this, it is important to establish the GSP of HIV/AIDS posters in order to understand their discourse structure and communicative resources and be able to account for the obligatory, optional and iterative elements as well as the sequence of the elements in the discourse.
Yuen (2004), working from the perspective of SFL, identifies certain macro-structural elements in the GSP of print advertisements and these include the Lead, Display, Emblem, Announcement, Enhancer, Tag and Call-and-Visit Information. According to Yuen, while Lead and Emblem are obligatory items, the rest of the elements are optional in print adverts. The Lead is an obligatory visual element in print adverts which is defined by its size, position and colour; and Display refers to the visual display of the product or service in the advertisement which may be explicit or implicit. The Emblem can be realised visually by the logo of the product/service, and linguistically by the brand name of the product/service. The Announcement (Primary and Secondary) is the most salient linguistic resource and has ‘relative prominence in scale, colour, font and size’. The Enhancer comprises linguistic items which build on the meaning ‘emanating from the interaction between the Lead and the Announcement’ (Yuen, 2004: 173). The Tag is a one-line statement that captures information not indicated in the Enhancer, while Call-and-Visit Information is a non-salient item that comprises contact information about the product/service. Thus, for Yuen, the GSP of print advertisement is catalogued as: Lead^(Display)^Emblem^(Announcement)^(Enhancer)^(Tag)^(Call-and-Visit Information). These terms are used in the analysis of HIV/AIDS posters which fall under outdoor-print texts and are also evident in the present data (posters). Hence, Yuen’s (2004) GSP is applicable to the present study.
Method
The theoretical framework for the study is taken from Van Leeuwen’s (2005) multimodal communicative acts and complemented with insights from Yuen’s (2004) GSP for print advertisements. The two theories are used because they both deal with multimodal texts from the perspective of SFL. The data for the study include six purposively selected posters written in English and sourced from two state hospitals in south-western Nigeria, which focus on educating and counselling people living with HIV/AIDS. The hospitals are Oyo State Hospital (Adeoyo, Ibadan, Oyo State) and Ogun State Teaching Hospital (Sagamu, Ogun State) and are good representatives of hospitals in south-western Nigeria. The posters were found in the HIV/AIDS clinics (waiting room section) of the hospitals. The data were complemented with structured interviews with 17 HIV/AIDS patients in order to gain their perspectives on the posters.
Data analysis
It is observed that the discourse of HIV/AIDS is broad in scope. Thus, four paramount issues that relate to PLWHA are examined:
revelation of status and protection of family members of PLWHA;
avoidance of other illnesses;
adherence to treatment;
avoidance of stigmatisation.
The above divisions were created in accordance with what we discovered to be the required proactive steps to be taken by PLWHA and their relatives for them to live a healthy and happy life. The first two issues relate to PLWHA, the third issue speaks to PLWHA and their relatives, while the last issue focuses on the relatives/friends of PLWHA. Hence, a purposive sampling technique was used to select posters that focus on each of the above divisions from a handful of data. This, then, accounts for the selection of six HIV/AIDS posters that corresponded to each of the divisions above that were used for our data analysis. Therefore, analyses of the posters were carried out based on each of these issues, which were addressed with at least one poster.
Revelation of status and protection of family members of PLWHA
Two pertinent issues that affect PLWHA are the need to inform family and friends about both their status, which is usually a difficult thing for PLWHA to do, and how to prevent their loved ones from contracting the disease from them (AIDS, 2012). The first poster attends to this issue.
In Figure 1, the Lead, which is an obligatory visual resource in the poster, is represented by a picture of a happy traditional family, which includes a smiling father, mother and two children. The Lead is what attracts the viewer to the poster. The Primary Announcement (PA) which captures the theme of the poster is ‘HIV Prevention for People Living with HIV/AIDS’. This connotes two things: there is an addresser and an addressee. The addresser is the producer of the text and s/he is specifically speaking to PLWHA. The statement has the communicative act of beckoning. This has an impact on the image in the text. Ordinarily, without the Announcement, the picture could be interpreted in several ways. The interaction between the Announcement and the Lead connotes that PLWHA can be part of a happy family, despite having what has been termed an ‘incurable disease’ or a ‘fornication or adultery inflicted disease’ by the Yorubas (Komolafe, 2010), the occupants of the south-western region of Nigeria. However, it is not clear whether the man or the woman is HIV-positive. It is, however, clear from the visual grammar that PLWHA can raise a healthy family without their partner or loved ones contracting the disease. Hence, they can live normal lives. Raising a healthy, happy family can only be possible, however, if PLWHA take certain precautions, which is reinforced in the Secondary Announcement (SA), ‘Protect your family’. This is an imperative statement which has the communicative act of instructing/advising PLWHA to take certain proactive steps towards protecting family members, which are spelt out in the Enhancer of the text as follows:
Tell your partner you have HIV.
Bring your partner and children to the clinic.
Allow staff at the clinic to carry out necessary tests to ascertain their status.
Protection of family members.
Given these steps, it is evident that the pragmatic function of the above communicative act for PLWHA to achieve a happy and healthy life is to compulsorily adhere to the given instructions. Hence, the visual grammar gives hope to PLWHA by depicting that the disease does not in any way affect their love life. The visual representation of a traditional Yoruba family in conjunction with their gaze is an effective multimodal resource deployed by the addresser in the text to create the notion of ‘hope’ in PLWHA. The resource is suggestive of the fact that PLWHA can express their emotions to their loved ones, like any normal person, and be as productive as any other human being.
The producers of the text make use of the frontal angle, which indicates an involvement (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006) of PLWHA and their relatives/friends with the represented participants in the poster. This involvement is further reinforced by both the visual and verbal grammar of a ‘demand for goods and services’. The direct gaze with the smiling expression of the poster family indicates an invitation, demanding that the viewer do something, which is foregrounded in the verbal demand: ‘Protect your family.’ The gaze indicates a direct address and the viewer is explicitly addressed with the use of the personal pronoun ‘your’.
Based on the size of frame and social distance, the producers make use of the long shot, as the full figure of the participants covers about half the height of the frame, and far social distance, which is indicated by presenting the whole figure with some space around it. These demonstrate an impersonal or distant relationship between the represented participants and the viewer. They also give the viewer an objective view and detached feeling or attitude towards the poster family. This shows that whether the viewers believe it or not, PLWHA can live happy lives. This detachment is further reinforced by the use of a reactional process as the family’s happy situation is what viewers need to see.
The use of an eye-level angle indicates equality between the viewer and the represented participants. Indeed, the poster family and the viewer and his/her family are equal since all parties are either HIV-positive or are relatives of HIV-positive people. However, the verbal text indicates inequality. Power is possessed by the producers of the text who are government health workers and are knowledgeable of the effects of HIV on the family. This inequality is indicated by the use of imperatives and the personal pronoun ‘your’ in the text. Thus, there is a combination of participation and disengagement in the poster.
Another important multimodal resource that has been deployed for effect in the text is the dress code of the participants. The family is dressed in Yoruba native attire, which is suggestive of their class. Obviously, the family belongs to the lower class and hails from a rural area but this is not a deterrent to them living a healthy and happy life. Considering the Lead, Announcement, Display and Enhancer of the text, it can be asserted that health advice on HIV/AIDS is not restricted to the upper class or elite, but is available to all in both urban and rural settings. The Emblem in the poster includes the Nigerian Coat of Arms, signifying the Ministry of Health as the producer of the text. This is meant to authenticate the message in the poster.
Figure 2 focuses on how to protect the family of PLWHA, particularly newborn babies, from HIV. Newborn babies are quite vulnerable as they can easily get infected by the disease since they can be in contact with their mothers’ blood during delivery and breast milk after delivery. Hence, it is imperative for mothers to be aware of the steps to be taken in order to protect their infants. These steps are presented clearly in the text in Figure 2. The Lead is the picture of a well-dressed mother carrying a baby, which has the communicative act of encouraging. This connotes that a mother, who is HIV-positive, can be healthy and can also have a healthy child. The Primary Announcement is ‘Mother to Child Transmission of HIV’, while the Secondary Announcement is the declarative: ‘Mother to child transmission of HIV can be prevented.’ This has the communicative act of informing. That which is not fully stated in the PA is explicitly stated in the SA. In the Enhancer, the addresser gives explicit steps on how PLWHA can protect their family, which indicates the act of instructing. These include telling their partners about their status and taking their partners to the clinic for testing. The Emblem in the poster includes the linguistic resource APIN/PMTCT PLUS PROGRAM, College of Medicine, who are the producers of the text, and a visual resource: a map of Africa which is the logo of APIN.
Mother to child transmission.
The producers of the poster in Figure 2 also make use of the frontal angle, which indicates involvement. This is significant because the text is speaking to PLWHA and their relatives/friends, thus they are involved with the represented participants. This involvement is further reinforced by the visual and verbal grammar of a ‘demand for goods and services’. The direct gaze of the mother and child in the image indicates an invitation, demanding or encouraging the viewer to do something, which is highlighted in the verbal demand: start attending an HIV clinic, amongst others in the Enhancer. The gaze indicates a direct address and the viewer is explicitly addressed with the use of the personal pronouns ‘your’ and ‘you’. However, the linguistic text does not only demand goods and services, it also offers information, which we find in both the Primary and Secondary Announcements. The information offered here includes the steps to be taken in order to protect one’s unborn child. The poster also illustrates the use of a reactional process as the healthy mother and child in the image are what need to be seen.
The producers make use of the close shot which is indicated by the appearance of the heads and shoulders of the represented participants; and close personal distance, which is indicated by the same. The choice of the head and shoulder shot suggests a close relationship between the represented mother/child and the viewer, based on shared HIV status or closeness with an HIV person. In fact, since the posters are found at HIV clinics, most of the viewers are HIV-positive. The use of a low-level angle indicates represented participant power. This implies that the mother in the image possesses more power as she has objective knowledge about ways of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Avoidance of other illnesses
Another issue that is important for PLWHA is how to avoid other illnesses since the body’s immunity is very low and cannot fight against diseases, due to the HIV virus. This is depicted in Figure 3.
Preventing TB.
In Figure 3, we are presented with a poster which contains a Lead that is divided into the Locus of Attention (LoA) and Complement to the Locus of Attention (Comp.LoA). The LoA is the image of two men, where one is transmitting tuberculosis, an airborne disease, to the other. This image has the communicative act of warning as it shows that it is easy to contract the ailment. The Comp.LoA is the image of a doctor counselling a patient. What the image is all about is made explicit in the Primary and Secondary Announcements. The PA indicates that the theme of the poster is tuberculosis and that is why it is capitalised. The SA complements this by pointing out that the issue does not just focus on tuberculosis alone, but specifically on how it can be avoided by PLWHA. The Announcements work together to reinforce the acts of warning and instructing. These acts are fully explored in the Enhancer, which focuses on how PLWHA can avoid contracting TB. The poster also contains Call-and-Visit Information, with a list of health institutions where patients can get more information, and the visual and linguistic resources of the Emblem which is depicted in the logo of the producers of the text and their names.
Both the verbal and visual text offer information. The participants do not look at the viewers but at each other. They are, as it were, enacting a play and telling us a story: that HIV patients can contract tuberculosis from close associates. The second set of participants informs the viewer that the patient can seek counselling from the doctor. The verbal text offers the information that is being enacted in the two images. The poster illustrates the use of an action process as there are represented participants who are actors and goals. In the first image, the first man is the actor who is passing the TB virus to the second man who is the goal, the one who is being affected by the behaviour of the actor. The arrows between them form the vector which points to the participant who is affected by the actions of the actor. In the second image, the doctor is the actor while the HIV patient is the goal. The direction of the doctor’s hand forms the vector. The images also exemplify a reactional process as the represented participants are what the viewers are expected to see.
The producers of Figure 3 make use of the oblique angle, which indicates detachment (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006). Two different types of shot and social distance are used in this poster. The first set of represented participants (two men talking, with germs flowing from one to the other) is seen close up and with much personal distance. This indicates a personal relationship between the represented participants as well as between the two of them and the viewer. It shows that it is possible for PLWHA to contract the disease from close friends and family. The second set of participants (a doctor and a patient in a consultation room) is projected in a medium-long shot, and at some social distance, which is indicated by seeing the whole image with some space around it. The choice of these images points to an impersonal or distant relationship between the represented participants, and between them and the viewer. The implication is that the relationship between the doctor and the represented participant as well as the viewer is a formal one, indicating social distance. Thus, the viewer has the stance of involvement and detachment with the images in the poster.
Treatment
A very important issue to PLWHA is how to take their drugs, which is important to their staying alive and healthy (Newman et al., 2009). The text below showcases the importance of this issue to PLWHA.
The Lead in Figure 4 has the picture of two women. One is a healthy-looking, well-dressed woman and the other is taking her drugs. This visual display has the communicative act of encouraging PLWHA to take their drugs in order to remain healthy. Use of the colour white as the salient background colour of the Lead is significant to the overall message of the text. The colour white is suggestive of knowledge. The participant in the text – a healthy-looking woman – is able to stay healthy because she has been well informed about what should be done to stay healthy. In fact, the two less-used colours, blue and red, can be said to reinforce the state of wellness and activity of the PLWHA when they adhere strictly to their drugs. Hence, colour is a powerful multimodal resource utilised in this text to project the intended message of the text. This is reinforced in the Announcement: ‘I adhere 100% to HIV treatment and I remain healthy.’ The communicative act of encouragement is further pronounced in the Enhancer: ‘It is practicable to all PLWHA on antiretroviral therapy (ART).’ Use of the acronyms ‘PLWHA’ and ‘ART’ in the text is significant as the addresser subtly campaigns against stigmatisation by being euphemistic about people who have been infected with the disease and the type of drugs they take. There is every probability that the use of acronyms in the text will make the PLWHA more receptive to the message of the text, and this will go a long way in helping them to declare their status or to know what has to be done to stay healthy. In addition, the acronym ART can only be understood by PLWHA and those closest to them and this indicates shared situational knowledge. In this poster, there is some Call-and-Visit Information: ‘If you need …’ The poster also includes the visual and linguistic resources of the Emblem, which are meant to add credibility to the message in the text.
HIV treatment.
Figure 4 both offers and demands. The verbal text, ‘I adhere 100% to HIV treatment and I remain healthy’ and ‘It is practicable to all PLWHA on ART’, informs the viewer that adhering to HIV treatment will keep one healthy. Indirectly, the verbal text demands that the viewer should adhere strictly to his/her HIV treatment, which is further reinforced by the visual grammar of a ‘demand for goods and services’ (depicted by the direct gaze of the first represented participant). The gaze indicates a direct address and the viewer is explicitly addressed with the use of the personal pronoun ‘your’. The visual demand is further highlighted by the second participant who is taking her drugs. The poster also illustrates use of a reactional process as the second represented participant is something to be seen.
The producers of the text make use of both the frontal and oblique angles, which indicate involvement and detachment respectively. The frontal angle of the first represented participant signifies that the participant and the viewer are close or related since they are both HIV-positive. This close relation is further highlighted by the use of an eye-level angle, which indicates equality between the participant and the viewer. The oblique angle of the second represented participant gives the viewer an objective view of what it takes to adhere to one’s prescription strictly. Based on the size of frame and social distance, the producers make use of the close shot and far personal distance. The choice of these shows a personal or close relationship between the represented participants and the viewer, as both are HIV-positive.
In Figure 5, the poster speaks to the relatives/friends of PLWHA. The Lead doubles as the Display, the visual display of drugs. The PA is ‘Show you Care’, while the SA is ‘Remind someone today to take his or her ARV drugs on time’. Both have the communicative act of encouraging friends/relatives to help PLWHA take their drugs and of instructing them as such. This is very important as the drugs to be taken by PLWHA are time-bound, as expressed in the SA of the text. The Enhancer, ‘Be a Treatment Partner’, also reinforces this act of instructing/advising.
ARV drugs.
The utilisation of rays of light shining towards the drugs displayed in the background of the text communicates a significant message to the PLWHA. The colour white signifies ‘hope’ and an ‘absence of health crises’ if the PLWHA are encouraged to adhere to their treatment. Also, the use of ‘his or her’ in the SA of the text reiterates the fact that HIV/AIDS is neither a class-nor gender-bound disease. The verbal text makes a demand which is indicated by the imperatives in the Announcement and the Enhancer.
The producers of the text make use of the frontal angle. The drug is placed in such a way as to confront the viewer with the importance of helping PLWHA to take their drugs. The viewer is explicitly addressed with the use of the personal pronoun ‘you’. The poster also illustrates the use of a reactional process as the represented participant, the drug, is what needs to be seen.
Stigmatisation
Another significant issue that affects PLWHA is stigmatisation. AIDS-related stigma and discrimination refers to prejudice, negative attitudes, abuse and maltreatment directed at PLWHA (AVERT, 2011b). The issue is also treated in the posters. This is illustrated in Figure 6.
Stigmatisation.
The Lead in Figure 6 is the picture of two women and a child whispering and pointing at a child who looks dejected. The PA is ‘Avoid Stigma and Discrimination’, while the SA is ‘Do not isolate a positive child’. The Lead and Announcements combine to have the communicative act of warning people not to isolate or stigmatise PLWHA and reminding all of society of its responsibility towards PLWHA. This is to avoid some of the consequences of discrimination, which include ‘being shunned by family, peers and the wider community, poor treatment in healthcare and education settings, an erosion of rights, psychological damage, and a negative effect on the success of HIV testing and treatment’ (Avert, 2011b). The positioning of the two women and the child with them depicts the negative attitude people usually display towards PLWHA, which is being discouraged in the text. The use of brown as the background colour seems to stand for society at large, while the colour white, which forms a moonlike shape on the boy standing aloof, signals that he is the one infected with the disease. Although the facial gesture of the boy depicts that he is living in a world of his own, rejected and abandoned, the projection of that moonlike white colour on him suggests that in spite of his present predicament, there is ‘hope’ for him. Hence, the Enhancer of the text utilises the communicative act of advising by reminding the relatives of PLWHA and all members of society of their responsibilities towards PLWHA, which are ‘care’, ‘love’ and ‘support’. Reinforcing the message of ‘hope’ projected through the moonlike shape on the infected boy in the text and the use of white as the background colour for the Enhancer of the text creates a sense of the importance of information, education and enlightenment in giving ‘hope’ to PLWHA.
The poster both offers and demands. The verbal text warns the viewer not to isolate a positive child and informs the viewer that positive children should be cared for. The visual text offers – it gives us a picture of people stigmatising a positive child. The information passed across here is that it is wrong to stigmatise positive children. The poster illustrates both reactional and action processes. It is reactional as the represented participants are the figures to be seen. It is a transactive action process as we find an interaction between the represented participants: the women and child on the left as the actors and the positive child on the right as the goal, the one who is being stigmatised.
The producers of the text make use of the oblique angle which indicates detachment and signifies the distant relationship between the two women and child on the left and the boy on the right. The implication is that the viewer should not be distant from or stigmatise positive children. Detachment is further highlighted by the size of frame and social distance used in the text. The producers make use of the medium shot which cuts off the subject at the knees, and close social distance that involves impersonal business (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006). These imply a distant relationship between the represented participants, and between the represented participants and the viewer.
Observation and conclusion
In this article, we have examined multimodal communicative acts and the generic structure potential of HIV/AIDS posters that speak to PLWHA. Our findings from the data reveal that communicative acts in HIV/AIDS posters that focus on PLWHA include the acts of instructing, beckoning, advising, encouraging, warning and informing, while the GSP is catalogued as:
Lead^(Display)^Emblem^Announcment^Enhancer^(Tag)^(Call-and-Visit Information).
This indicates that Lead, Emblem, Announcement and Enhancer are obligatory elements, while Display, Tag and Call-and-Visit Information are optional elements. It is noted that compared to Yuen’s (2004) model, which indicates that Lead and Emblem are the only obligatory elements in printed advertisements, the campaign posters on HIV/AIDS indicate that in addition to Lead and Emblem, Announcement and Enhancer are also obligatory elements. This may be due to the function of the text as a campaigning and educative tool rather than an advertisement for a product or service. It is also noted that Display is a rare occurrence as most of the posters did not have any image representing the disease itself.
It has been established in this article that HIV/AIDS posters are laden with actions, voices and persuasions that are used as communicative strategies to convey different messages to PLWHA and society at large. Although they seem static in nature, they are as communicative and representative as any other medium of communication. Multimodal resources that are relied upon to project how to positively cope with the disease in the data include participant representation, size of frame, social distance, angle, colour, gaze, posture, linguistic resources, and so on.
It has also been observed that although general HIV/AIDS posters, which focus on prevention, can be found in public spaces such as hospitals, schools and churches, HIV/AIDS posters that speak specifically to PLWHA are mainly found in HIV clinics. One of the PLWHA interviewed in the clinic stated that these posters should not be put up in clinics alone, but also in other places where the general public could view them. A number of the positive people interviewed opined that the posters were useful as they reminded and encouraged them to take their drugs. Thus, there is the need to provide more HIV/AIDS posters that focus on support so that issues such as stigmatisation and the taking of medication can be viewed by friends/relatives of PLWHA who may not go near the clinics.
Through the theoretical framework used for the study, we have discovered that arriving at a seemingly appropriate meaning of the message conveyed on HIV/AIDS posters that focus on PLWHA requires adequate consideration of all the dominant multimodal resources employed in the medium. It has been established from an analysis of the data that a text exists by a deliberate use of a range of representational and communicational modes and it has to be interpreted in conjunction with all these modes for one to arrive at an acceptable meaning. This, then, makes the interpretation of the data deeper, richer and more synthesised than would have been possible if just one singular perspective had been adopted. Therefore, this article has demonstrated the relevance of outdoor print to the enterprise of effective communication on HIV/AIDS in our society. The study shows that there is heavy reliance on semiotic resources which signal the intended meaning of the producers of the posters.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank an anonymous reviewer, Dr MA Olateju and Dr K Ayoola of Obafemi Awolowo University for very useful comments on earlier drafts of this article, and Mr Akinkunmi Paul of the University of Ibadan for his assistance with data collection. This article was presented at the 5th Linguistic Association of Ghana conference at the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana in July 2012.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.