A Semiotic Analysis of the Gender Equality Paradigm. Case study: the Gender Pay Gap Campaign

Abstract

Within the new European space of identity, attitude and action challenges, syntagms such as “unity in diversity” or “equal pay for work of equal value” have become identitarian brands for social groups with a high-level of self-awareness. Having the social semiotics (Kress, van Leeuwen [1996] 2006) as theoretical background, we focused our analysis on the gender equality paradigm. The empirical data were provided by four visual texts of the Gender Pay Gap campaign, initiated by the European Commission in March 2009, in order to map the new European “puzzle-space” . The analysis showed the importance of compositional, representational and interactive meanings within the European discourse on equality of chances and gender.

Keywords

• sign
• semiotic system
• identity
• European “puzzle-space”
• information campaign