Other modes that can be found in the data are the metadata of the post (3) and the metrics that indicate the uptake of the post (4). Another prominent mode is the text Wilders wrote as caption: “ #hexit” (2). The most prominent is the image of the witch-puppet that is composed in such a way that it looks as if it flew against a tree (1). In Figure 1 (a screenshot taken on October 8th 2021) we encounter different modes of communication. The subject of my analysis will be a tweet posted on September 16th 2021 by Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders. In this article, intertextuality will be applied in order to examine earlier instances in Dutch political discourse wherein witches are used discursively and to examine the uptake following Geert Wilders' tweet. This will hopefully reveal how Geert Wilders positions himself within the ongoing Dutch political discourse in order to derive comprehensive social meaning from the data. Intertextuality, therefore, looks at the historicity of semiotic signs and their social meanings. Intertextuality acknowledges that “ we continuously use and re-use elements of discourse borrowed from earlier moments of usage” (Diggit Magazine, 2020c), and that snippets of discourse always position themselves in relation to previous and future discourse. A thorough analysis of the data cannot ignore this historicity for which intertextuality is a helpful concept. It is but one instance of the multiple times Geert Wilders referred to Sigrid Kaag as a witch. Looking at the multimodal semiotic units within the data through the lens of indexicality can therefore give strong indications of the social meaning of this particular snippet of political discourse, which will play a vital role in examining the discursive function of witches in Dutch political discourse.Īs mentioned in the introduction, the data examined in this article does not exist in a vacuum. It suggests that semiotic units always index – point to – more than just their denotational meaning. Indexicality refers to the “ meaning that emerges out of text-context relations” (Blommaert, 2005). In order to comprehensively understand the social meaning of the examined data, the social roles, norms, and identities that are suggested by the different semiotic signs need to be analyzed. Therefore, it is useful to turn to the concept of indexicality. Multimodality will be a helpful tool in interpreting and making sense of the qualitative data that's examined in this article since it consists of a mix of textual and visual modalities. This multimodal approach will be taken into account while applying two additional methodological tools: indexicality and intertextuality. In order to thoroughly analyze the data, a multimodal approach will be taken. This analytical method is mainly concerned with how meanings are made in social life by taking into account multiple modalities and how they interact with one another (Dicks, 2019 Diggit Magazine, 2020b). There is a picture, text, metadata, and uptake metrics to be considered. The tweet by Geert Wilders that will be analyzed below consists of multiple modes. Multimodality, indexicality, and intertextuality in #Hexit In this article, I will explore the historical and social meaning of the word ‘witch’ in politics and examine its discursive function in Dutch political discourse by analyzing a tweet posted by Geert Wilders on the day of Sigrid Kaag’s resignation as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The hashtag combining the word ' heks' (witch) with exit seems to refer to the fact that Wilders wants Kaag to leave and is a clear reference to the term 'Brexit'. This was done by right-wing politician Geert Wilders who in 2021, used the Dutch word for ‘witch’ (‘heks’) in reference to center-democratic politician Sigrid Kaag multiple times. Witches are hardly political figures, but their name and likeliness are sometimes used in the Dutch political arena, for example with the hashtag #Hexit.
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