Inclusion of Nature in Online Green Advertisements of Gated Compounds and Its Impact on Social Justice

نوع المستند : المقالة الأصلية

المؤلف

Department of Translation and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Helwan University, Cairo

المستخلص

The purpose of this paper is to examine ways through which nature is incorporated in online green ads as a manipulative marketing tool to promote gated compounds in Egypt. The present study also aims at investigating the insinuated ideology in these nature-based ads through fostering a particular social identity, which could lead to social inequality. Despite the great impact of incorporating images of nature and texts which carry environmental meanings in green advertisements, and despite the progressing role of eco-advertising, few linguistic researches explore ways through which textual and visual elements are synthesized in green ads as a marketing tool. To that end, Machin and Mayr’s (2012) multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) model is adopted to explore the visual and textual elements in online green ads which propagate gated compounds in Egypt. Data is collected from seven online ads which appear on social platforms, and in particular Facebook and Instagram. A qualitative approach design is adopted to explore the textual and visual devices relating to nature. Following a comprehensive model in exploring both texts and images, the study shows that nature is employed as an appealing marketing tool and that the choice of a foreign language in these ads accentuates social injustice, which in turn can lead to segregation.

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