Abstract
The present paper asks tackles questions that can be briefly formulated as follows: 1) how to visualize power or hegemonic relationship? and 2) does visual rhetoric have anything to offer to research on the visualization processes of hegemony? One of the instruments through which power relations are established in society is photography. The following paper discusses the relationship between the theory of hegemony as elaborated by Ernesto Laclau and the semiotics of culture of Yuri Lotman. The reason for believing that this incorporation will be successful is the very apparent theoretical congeniality between them. They both traverse the Saussurean ontological terrain. Using the photo of the Song Festival (1950) in Soviet Estonia as an example, I attempt to reveal the hegemonic signification process and how the concept of rhetoric may help to clarify this process. The main categories of analysis are tropes, metaphor, and metonymy.
About the author
Andreas Ventsel (b. 1976) is a senior researcher at Tartu University 〈andreas.ventsel@ut.ee〉. His research interests include political analysis, visual semiotics, theory of hegemony, and political semiotics. His publications include ``The construction of the Stalinist post-war (1944–1953) `Soviet people': A concept in the political rhetoric of Soviet Estonia'' (2010); ``Hegemonic signification from cultural semiotics point of view'' (2011); and Constructing political identities in public discourse of Stalin era: The cult of the leadership in construction of ``Soviet people'' (2011).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
