De-constructing Al-Qassam Brigades Visual Discourse on October 7, 2023 A Case of Two Military Operation Films
Abstract
This research explores the visual discourse of the military wing of Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Ezzeddeen Al-Qassam Brigades, on October 7, 2023. It analyses and decodes the embedded signs and symbols of two edited military operations films; which they published on their Telegram channel. Drawing on this aim, the main question is: How is the visual discourse of Al-Qassam conveyed in the military operation films issued on the day of Tufan Al-Aqsa (Al-Aqsa Flood) Operation against the Israeli army? This research is significant because it delves to the unaddressed side of such pivotal event. The strategy used in this paper is qualitative research strategy and the design adopted is a case study. This research employs a social semiotic analysis on the purposive samples selected. The social semiotic approach draws on Roland Barthes's foundational concepts of denotation, connotation, and myth. The text Speech Act Theory is applied to derive illocutionary, locutionary and perlocutionary acts to understand the way of their employment. Ultimately, this research identifies and interprets the embedded signs and their representations, and hence the discourse that the military wing of Hamas seeks to reinforce and to advance its communication, political, and military objectives.
Keywords: Al-Qassam Brigades, Israeli army, visual representations, military operations films, semiotic analysis.
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