Woman/life/freedom: The social semiotics behind the 2022 Iranian protest movement

Abstract

Modern day protest movements consist of demands for social action to address entrenched issues such as government leadership and long-standing traditions and values. Driven by an initiating event that incites a collective societal outburst and mobilisation, protestors engage a range of linguistic and semiotic expressions to challenge existing discourses, increasingly platforming these messages globally through the intersection of digital technology and online social networks. The 2022 demonstrations in Iran under the protest banner Woman, Life, Freedom emerged as characteristic of modern social and political movements. Sparked by a widely circulated video showing 22-year-old Mahsa Amini collapsing in a Tehran classroom after being arrested for “improper” hijab wearing, these protests utilised social media to swiftly disseminate related content. This study examines a diverse range of protest signage shared on social media that conveys these protestors’ messages. We employ the concept of “mediational means” from mediated discourse analysis to explore the linguistic and semiotic resources employed during these protests. Our analysis draws from a corpus of protest images and digital ethnographic accounts, investigating how these resources were harnessed to challenge prevailing societal norms, particularly regarding gender and its intersections with ethnicity. We assert that the semiotic processes involved in creating and disseminating protest signage not only galvanised participants during the protests but also contributed to the formation and reinforcement of a “new” identity among the demonstrators. This newly forged identity carries profound implications not only for gender dynamics but also for broader aspects of identity within Iranian society and potentially on a global scale.