Att porträttera lidande, hopp och ansvar i humanitär kommunikation : En tematisk och socialsemiotisk analys av Läkare Utan Gränsers kommunikation på Instagram om kriget i Sudan

This study examines how visual communication on Doctors Without Borders’ Swedish Instagram account contributes to evoking emotions in the viewer through the use of semiotic resources, with specific focus on the portrayal of the war in Sudan. The aim of the study is to analyze how semiotic resources in the images construct relationships between the actors represented in the images, and how these semiotic resources and the construction of relationships can be understood as catalysts to evoke emotions in the viewer. To achieve this, the study applies a thematic analysis and a social semiotic analysis to nine images from Doctors Without Borders’ Swedish Instagram account. The theoretical framework is constituted by Roland Barthes’ theory on semiotics, van Leeuwen’s theory on social semiotics and is further complemented by Sara Ahmed’s theorisation of emotions as relational and socially situated. The results show that the combination of different semiotic resources and different portrayals of relationships functions as effective tools for evoking emotions in the viewer. Furthermore, the study showed in which situations the viewer is positioned in a relationship with other actors in the image, such as perpetrators and individuals in need. Another important finding is that perpetrators are often anonymized in the images, which contributes to the construction of a compassionate discourse toward those affected by the consequences of the war. In conclusion, Doctors Without Borders’ communication is a remarkable example of balancing informing their audience, evoking attention and avoiding exploitation. By highlighting the role of semiotic resources in the construction of meaning in relation to relationships and emotions, the study contributes to existing research on humanitarian visual communication and demonstrates how visual representations can be used to evoke emotional engagement in the context of contemporary conflict, such as the conflict in Sudan.