The Signs of a Strongman: A Semiotic and Discourse Analysis of Abdelfattah Al-Sisi’s Egyptian Presidential Campaign

Abstract

This study employs semiotic analysis to examine the sign system in two of Abdelfattah Al-Sisi’s 2014 Egyptian presidential campaign posters, and discourse analysis to uncover dominant discourses in Al-Sisi’s most prominent campaign video. The semiotic analysis finds that the campaign presented Al-Sisi as a familiar, yet transcendent, figure, and the discourse analysis suggests that the video producers discursively constructed Al-Sisi as the ultimate patriot and a strongman with immense leadership abilities.