EXPLORING TEAM MUHAFIZ COMIC SERIES FOR THE PORTRAYAL OF SOCIAL EVILS: A MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE PERSPECTIVE
Keywords:
Comic Series, Interpersonal Metafunction, Social Issues, Visual Grammar, Youth ActivismAbstract
This study aims at investigating the visual modes employed to represent characters and social issues such as child marriage, girls’ harassment, and drug abuse in the selected comic series Team Muhafiz. This study draws upon Visual Grammar Model (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006) and interpersonal metafunction from Systemic Functional Theory (Halliday, 2004; Mathiessen, 2014) for its analyses. The former helped to analyze characters portrayed through images and the latter aided in investigating roles and relationships embedded through linguistic choices given in dialogue boxes. According to Kress and Van Leeuwen's (2006) theoretical framework, visual images fulfill three fundamental metafunctions: representational, interactive, and compositional. These metafunctions facilitate the conveyance of experiential knowledge, establishment of participant-viewer relationships, and arrangement of visual resources. This model guided the analysis of the comic series’ visual elements to identify how social issues are portrayed and challenged. Furthermore, the findings highlight power relations, solidarity, and resistance, thereby promoting collective awareness. The results suggest that Team Muhafiz narrates stories of social injustices that empowers marginalized voices and encourages youth activism.
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