The Role of Sarcastic Multimodal Discourse in Articulating Public Opinion on Climate Change

Abstract

This study investigated the functional role of multimodal sarcasm in articulating public sentiment within climate change discourse. By analyzing the intersection of verbal and visual semiotic resources, this research explored how digital sarcasm serves as a vehicle for socio-political critique. Specifically, it probes the mechanisms through which sarcasm is encoded across visual and linguistic channels, challenging dominant environmental narratives. Utilizing Barthes’ (1977) semiotic framework, this study conducted a qualitative analysis of one hundred multimodal artifacts, facilitating a nuanced understanding of how denotative imagery and connotative sarcasm coalesce to form a unified critique of climate inaction. The study investigates how sarcastic discourse functions as a tool for social critique and community building. According to the semiotic analysis, sarcasm is created by an intentional interaction of numerous semiotic modes and contextualized socio-cultural resources. The analyzed data reveals a strategic deployment of rhetorical tropes, including hyperbole, intertextuality, and personification, to give voice to public skepticism regarding official climate policies. These sarcastic techniques encompass comparisons, personification, rhetorical questions, proverbs, intertextuality, and exaggeration. The unique methodological adaptation of Barthes' semiotic approach for analyzing multimodal sarcasm captures the nuanced interaction between specific semiotic modes (e.g., text-image incongruity) in a way that differs from quantitative or computational approaches. This analytical lens situates these authoritative figures as an outgroup, susceptible to ridicule by the ingroup community that bears the adverse consequences of inaction. Optimistically, this investigation will yield significant contributions to subsequent research, providing valuable insights into multimodal semiotic analysis and its function in shaping public discourse.