Cite this article as: Ajia, M. O. (2025). A multimodal discourse analysis of hashtag expressions in Nigeria’s #EndSARS protest. Sokoto Journal of Linguistics and Communication Studies (SOJOLICS), 1(1), 172–183. www.doi.org/10.36349/sojolics.2025.v01i01.021
A MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF HASHTAG EXPRESSIONS IN NIGERIA’S #ENDSARS PROTEST
By
Mammud Olayinka AJIA
&
Oluwatomi Adeoti
Department of English and Linguistics, Kwara State University, Malete
Abstract
This study examines hashtag expressions as multimodal communicative resources in the digital mediation of protest during the 2020 #EndSARS movement in Nigeria. Adopting an interpretivist analytical perspective, the paper investigates how hashtags such as #EndSARS, #SoroSoke, and #EndPoliceBrutality shaped protest narratives, mobilised youth participation, and sustained online engagement across social media platforms. Anchored in Kress and van Leeuwen’s multimodal discourse analysis framework and Zappavigna’s hashtag discourse theory, the study analysed twenty purposively selected hashtagged multimodal contents drawn from Facebook, Instagram, and X. The analysis reveals that hashtags functioned beyond their conventional indexing role to operate as ideological markers, emotional cues, and rallying points that amplified collective identity and political consciousness among protesters. The findings further demonstrate that the strategic combination of textual, visual, and symbolic elements within hashtag expressions enhanced message circulation, solidarity formation, and memory construction of the protest. The study concludes that multimodal hashtag practices significantly reshape the organisation, representation, and remembrance of digital protest within Nigeria’s contemporary socio-political context.
Keywords: Hashtags, Multimodal Discourse, #EndSARS, Protest Communication, Social Media.
1. Introduction
The rise of online protest has significantly transformed contemporary modes of activism, particularly in contexts where traditional mass media underreport dissenting voices, as observed in Nigeria. The #EndSARS protest of October 2020 marked a watershed moment in youth-led resistance against police brutality, later expanding into street demonstrations demanding broader institutional reforms. While physical protests took place across major Nigerian cities, much of the movement’s visibility, organisation, and solidarity were sustained on digital platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (now X). Central to this digital activism was the strategic deployment of hashtags, which mobilised public sentiment and garnered support both within Nigeria and among the diaspora.
In the context of the #EndSARS movement, hashtags operated as multimodal resources with sociopolitical significance, functioning simultaneously on three interconnected levels: mobilisation, identification, and amplification. As tools for mobilisation, hashtags such as #EndSARS enabled rapid circulation of protest activities and schedules in real time, with the decentralised nature of social media ensuring that no single authority-controlled information flow. This structure increased resilience against disruption and lowered barriers to participation, allowing individuals from diverse backgrounds to align with the movement through a recognisable digital marker (Bruns & Burgess, 2015; Highfield, 2016; Tufekci, 2017).
Hashtags also acted as unifying emblems, encapsulating the collective grievances and aspirations of Nigerian youths. Each tagged post contributed to a shared discursive space in which narratives were negotiated, solidarity was fostered, and a sense of belonging reinforced (Jackson et al., 2020; McGregor, 2019; Papacharissi, 2016). In this multimodal environment, textual and visual elements converged to enhance meaning, strengthen communal resolve, and amplify the movement’s symbolic power (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2021). Furthermore, the #EndSARS hashtag transcended national boundaries, engaging the Nigerian diaspora and international communities in the protest’s discourse.
Beyond prominent hashtags such as #EndSARS, #SoroSoke, and #EndPoliceBrutality, the movement incorporated a broader communicative ecosystem including #EndBadGovernance, #OurMumuDonDo, #JusticeForAll, #SecureNigeria, #ReformThePolice, #EnoughIsEnough, #NoJusticeNoPeace, #WeMove, #October20, #NeverForgetLekkiMassacre, #YouthPower, #SayTheirNames, #EndSWAT, #StopKillingUs, #RevolutionNow, #RestructureNigeria, and #PowerOfThePeople. These hashtags functioned as multimodal artifacts, often integrated with images, memes, videos, emojis, and textual elements, collectively conveying emotion, urgency, and political intent. According to Zappavigna (2012), hashtags are socially charged linguistic acts that enable affiliation, identity formation, sentiment expression, and ideological positioning, particularly relevant in protest contexts.
This study investigates the multimodal communicative functions of hashtags during the #EndSARS movement, focusing on how these expressions serve as tools for constructing and circulating resistant narratives in Nigeria’s digital protest space. Specifically, the study examines the visual and linguistic composition of protest hashtags, explores how textual and visual elements work together to express resistance and solidarity, and analyses their role in facilitating collective identity, mobilisation, and public engagement. Furthermore, the research considers how multimodal discourse enhances the visibility and effectiveness of hashtag-based communication, contributing to a broader understanding of digital activism in contemporary Nigeria.
2. Literature Review
The digital era has profoundly transformed the ways individuals and communities engage in social protests, with hashtags on social media emerging as a central feature of contemporary activism. These hashtag expressions are often embedded within broader digital communication systems characterised by multimodal discourse. In Nigeria, the 2020 #EndSARS protest against police brutality exemplifies this phenomenon, illustrating both the organisational power of social media and the multimodal functions of hashtags. This literature review situates the current study within scholarship on hashtag activism, multimodal discourse, and protest communication.
Hashtag activism refers to the strategic use of hashtags to mobilise social movements and foster political engagement online (Yang, 2016). It enables decentralised participation, rapid information dissemination, and the formation of affective publics (Papacharissi, 2015). Hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #BringBackOurGirls have become rallying symbols, transforming digital platforms into arenas of sociopolitical action. Bonilla and Rosa (2015) describe hashtags as “performative indexes” that signal the urgency and relevance of sociopolitical issues. Beyond simple categorisation, hashtags serve as rhetorical devices encapsulating complex sentiments in a replicable form. In their analysis of #Ferguson, they demonstrate how hashtags provide narrative cohesion, linking disparate posts into a collective discourse of resistance. In the Nigerian context, Egbunike and Olorunnisola (2015) observed that #BringBackOurGirls mobilised global attention to a local issue, highlighting the transnational potential of hashtag activism.
Multimodal discourse encompasses communication that integrates multiple semiotic modes to construct meaning (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). Digital platforms have facilitated the proliferation of multimodal texts, particularly within protest cultures. On platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, activists combine textual hashtags, images, memes, and videos to create compelling narratives. Jewitt (2009) notes that digital environments are inherently multimodal, while Machin (2016) underscores the importance of studying visual and spatial arrangements in online texts. In the context of protest, multimodal resources enable activists to reach diverse audiences and evoke emotion. Highfield (2016) observes that the affordances of social media platforms encourage layered communication, where a single post might include a hashtag (#EndSARS), an image depicting police brutality, emojis expressing sentiment, and a video of a live protest. These co-occurring elements interact to shape meaning and engagement among online users.
During the #EndSARS protest, hashtags were central to multimodal expressions that criticised political leaders and disseminated information about citizens’ rights. These multimodal texts amplified the emotional and political impact of protest messages and promoted virality. Scolari (2012) argues that digital environments require an ecological approach to fully understand how meaning is constructed and circulated. The multimodal hashtag expressions deployed in #EndSARS illustrate how users adapt platform-specific features to create resonant political messages.
This study contributes to the growing field of multimodal discourse analysis by focusing specifically on hashtag expressions as multimodal signs. It further enriches scholarship on digital activism by foregrounding a Nigerian protest movement and situating it within the broader media ecology. In doing so, the study offers a nuanced understanding of how digital multimodal communication intersects with contemporary forms of resistance.
3. Research Methodology
This study adopts a qualitative interpretivist research design, which provides an in-depth understanding of how individuals construct meaning within social contexts (Creswell, 2013, p. 20). In the context of digital activism, this approach enables an examination of how online actors negotiate meaning through multimodal resources such as hashtags, images, and videos, which collectively shape protest narratives on social media. The qualitative interpretivist design is particularly appropriate for this study, as it seeks to unravel the layered meanings encoded in both visual and textual elements of social media posts related to the #EndSARS protest.
The research is anchored on three analytical orientations: descriptive, exploratory, and interpretive. It is descriptive in identifying and documenting recurring patterns in hashtag configurations, exploratory in investigating a relatively under-theorised area of multimodal protest communication, and interpretive in employing the researcher’s analytical insights to decode how meaning emerges from the interplay of multiple modes across different social media platforms.
Data were purposively collected from Facebook, Instagram, and X, chosen due to their high levels of user engagement during the #EndSARS protest (Ogungbade et al., 2024). Al Jazeera (2020) similarly noted that these platforms projected interactions between textual and visual modes while algorithmically leveraging hashtags to organise and amplify protest content.
The population for the study comprised social media posts related to the #EndSARS protest, which trended widely between October and November 2020. A purposive sampling technique was employed to select 20 multimodal posts that were rich in content and representative of the protest’s key objectives. Each selected post contained at least one protest-related hashtag to ensure alignment with the study’s focus on multimodal communication and digital activism.
4. Theoretical Framework
This study is grounded in two complementary theoretical perspectives: Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) as developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) and Hashtag Discourse Theory as advanced by Zappavigna (2012). These frameworks provide a robust analytical lens for understanding how linguistic and visual elements in digital protest spaces interact to create and circulate meaning. Together, they support the study’s primary objective of investigating the multimodal communicative functions of hashtag expressions during the #EndSARS protest in Nigeria.
Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) is a theoretical and methodological approach concerned with how meaning is constructed through the interaction of multiple modes such as text, image, sound, colour, layout, and spatial arrangement. Developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), MDA extends Halliday’s (1978) Systemic Functional Linguistics beyond linguistic signs to account for other semiotic modes of communication. Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) propose that each mode has a “grammar,” or a set of rules and resources for meaning-making. They identify three metafunctions adapted from Halliday’s framework to analyse multimodal texts:
i. The representational metafunction concerns the content being represented in the text, examining how entities, actions, and events are visually or textually depicted.
ii. The interactive metafunction addresses the relationship between the producer and the viewer, analysing elements such as gaze, distance, and point of view to determine engagement or detachment.
iii. The compositional metafunction focuses on the arrangement of textual and visual elements, including salience, framing, and information value, to understand how layout contributes to overall meaning.
MDA is particularly suitable for analysing online protest discourses that combine images, text, and hashtags, as social media interfaces often blend memes, slogans, visuals, and textual elements into a cohesive multimodal ensemble (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006).
Hashtag Discourse Theory, as proposed by Zappavigna (2012), emerges from the study of Twitter discourse and the concept of ambient affiliation, which refers to the ways users form bonds through shared values and ideologies in digitally networked publics. Within this framework, hashtags are not merely search tools but discursive resources performing key social and linguistic functions. They allow users to index topical content, provide context, and signal interpersonal stance. Hashtags thus fulfil both ideational and interpersonal roles, facilitating rapid dissemination of content, symbolic unity, and collective identification. This theory is instrumental in examining how hashtags such as #EndSARS activate emotional engagement and collective participation across diverse digital audiences.
5. Data Presentation and Analysis
This section presents a multimodal discourse analysis of selected 20 data from the #EndSARS protest in Nigeria. The data were collected from posts Facebook posts, upload from Instagram and tweet from X. The analysed data were selected for their seemingly high engagement metrix on social media platforms during the protest.
The analysis is guided byMultimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) approach, as articulated by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), to examine how meaning is constructed through the interplay of various multimodal modes. The study is further grounded in Zappavigna's (2012) Hashtag Discourse Theory, which positions the #EndSARShashtag not merely as a label, but as a dynamic and indexical tool for building a collective discourse.The analysis is organised into 15 thematic areas, each exploring how protesters strategically employed a multimodal repertoire to articulate their grievances online during the protest. Through the exploration of the two theories above, this analysis aims to reveal the sophisticated communication strategies used to challenge authority and shape public perception in both online and offline spaces.
Grief, Loss, and Martyrdom
Image 1: The image of a young man carrying the lifeless body of a lady wrapped with a blood-soaked Nigerian national flag.
Source: https://www.facebook/sorosoke
Image 8: The displays of Nigerian national flag stained with blood, half face of a young man with a red eye ball discharging tears and an inscription 20 – 10 – 2020. A day the Nigerian Government killed her citizen. WE WILL NEVER FORGET
Source: https://www.instagram.com
Image 13: The list of names with caption – REMEMBER THEIR NAMES
Source: https://www.X.com/EndSARsResponse
This theme represents the profound sorrow and tragic sacrifice that became a core part of the EndSARS narrative. The images use powerful symbolic processes (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) to transform individual deaths into a collective national grief. Image 1 depicts a young man carrying a lifeless body wrapped in a blood-soaked Nigerian national flag. This is not just a scene of mourning, it is a political inclined symbol. The flag, a symbol of national pride, is subverted into a shroud, visually communicating that the nation itself is complicit in the death of her citizens. This sentiment is amplified by image 8, a visual eulogy for the acclaimed victims of the Lekki Toll Gate shooting. The image's blend of a blood-stained flag, a red eyeball discharging tears, and the defiant text "WE WILL NEVER FORGET" creates a powerful monument that serves to organise and preserve the collective memory of the protest. The caption in Image 13, "REMEMBER THEIR NAMES," grounds this collective memory in the reality of individual lives thereby making the abstract grief tangible and personal.
Emotional Agony and Raw Anguish
Image 4: The image of a middle-aged woman in a distressed like situation who uses her left hand painted in green-white-green to cover her mouth.
Source: https/www.X.com/challieboy
Image 5: The above image shows a young man in agony.
Source: https://www.X.com/EndSARSResponse
Image 15: The image if a muscular young, mouth wide open in agony, self-blindfolded with wound bondage coloured in green-white-green and blood tear rolling down his face
Source: https://www.instagram/thecableng.com
These images go beyond general grief to capture the visceral, individual pain and frustration of the protesters. This shared emotional experience became a key element of the discoursal identity forged by the protest. The woman in Image 4 is in a distressed situation. The performative active of the woman covering her mouth by a hand painted in green-white-green is an icon of silenced pain. Her covered mouth is a symbolic-attributive process that represents a nation unable to speak its truth. The young man in agony in image 5 challenges stereotypes and demonstrates that the pain of police brutality transcends social class as it affects all segments of society. The most striking example is image 15, where a man is self-blindfolded with a green-white-green bandage as blood tears roll down his face. This image is a complex symbolic representation of a nation turning its own identity into a source of suffering.
The Communicative Power of Placards
Image 10: The image centrally displaying a placard with an inscription boldly written FIGHT DAY FOR A BETTER TOMORROW
Source: https://www.X.com/saharareporter
Image 11: The image shows a young lady in white T-shirt using her both hands to lift up a placard with different EndSARS related inscriptions
https://www.X.com/EndSARSResponse
Figure 20: The image of a young man lifting up a placard with an inscription ENDSARS #YOUTHS ARE NOT THE ENEMY OF STATE
Source: https://www.facebook.com/Endsarsmovement
Placards served as the primary means of direct communication.The central placement and bold lettering make the placards the most salient elements in #EndSARSrespective images. The placard in image 10 with "FIGHT DAY FOR A BETTER TOMORROW" is a concise summary of the protest's forward-looking goals. In image 11, the young lady holding a placard with "different EndSARS related inscriptions" visually represents the diverse but unified nature of the movement's demands. The placard in image 20, with its message "YOUTHS ARE NOT THE ENEMY OF STATE," directly counters official narratives that sought to delegitimise the protest. 4. Collective Action and Unified Defiance
Image 2: EndSARS protesters preventing vehicular movement at the Lekki Toll Gate
Source: https://www.X.com/EndSARsResponseUnit
Image 9: the image shows assemblage of multitude of young protesters seeming listening to instructions and a prominent placard with a mixture of Yoruba language word and pidgin inscription – SORO SOKE WEREY (abusive expression literarily means: speak up mad person) is held high up.
Source: https://www.facebook/sorosokeplatform
Image 16: the image of Aishatu Yusuf in clench fist posture and other protesters at the background carrying different placards with EndSARS related messages
Source: https://www.X.com/ayisayusufu
These images focus on the collective power and strategic organisation of the protest. The images in 2, 9 and 16 show individuals united for a common cause during the protest. Image 2, which shows protesters preventing vehicular movement at the Lekki Toll Gate, is a representation of a narrative process of strategic action. The assemblage of a multitude of young protesters in image 9, seemingly listening to instructions, portrays a disciplined and focused crowd. The collective spirit is most powerfully captured in Image 16, where activist Aishatu Yusuf and other protesters are seen with clenched fists, a universal symbol of unified solidarity. The hashtag provided the ideological and digital framework that allowed this collective action to be organised and globally recognised.
Iconic Slogans
Image 14: the image of a woman raising her right hand in clenched fist posture and using her left hand to hold a placard with inscription – OUR MUMU DON DO, amidst protesters.
Source: https://www.instagram,com/Endsarsmovement
This theme highlights the specific, culturally resonant slogans that became the unofficial anthems of the protest. The placard in image 9 with the blend of Yoruba language and Pidgin phrase "SORO SOKE WEREY" (abusive expression that means: speak up mad person) was a raw, defiant call to action. It commanded the silent to speak up and the fearful to resist the authority during the protest. Similarly, the woman in Image 14 holding the placard with "OUR MUMU DON DO" (our foolishness is enough) encapsulated a shared frustration and a decisive shift from passive suffering to active resistance.
The Symbolism of a Wounded Nation
Image 6: the image shows the map of Nigeria battered with live bullet and blood stain.
Source: www.instagram.com
These images use national symbols not for patriotism, but to comment on the state of the nation itself. The green, white, and red colours are repurposed to convey pain and corruption. Image 6, showing a map of Nigeria battered with live bullet and blood stain, is a conceptual process that makes the abstract idea of national trauma tangible. The national flag is repeatedly subverted in image 1 and image 8 from a symbol of pride to one of tragedy. It is further seen as visual declaration of a nation that has failed its people. The use of national colours to cover a woman's mouth in image 4 and a painful act of blindfold in image 15, powerfully visualise the idea that the nation's own identity is a source of its suffering.
Intergenerational and Broad Support
Image 18: The image of an old woman carrying a placard with an inscription – RIGHT THE WRONGS #MothersStandWithYouths while other protesters are following including a traffic officer
Source: https://www.facabook.com/thecableng.com
Image 7: The art work displaying the image of a young lady holding her little baby and EndSARS-related messages are written at the background.
Source: https://www.instagram.com
Image 19: The image of young newly wedded couple holding an improvised placard with EndsARS inscription.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/thecable.ng
This theme demonstrates that the protest was a societal-wide movement, not a youth rebellion. The hashtag was instrumental in creating an affinity space that united diverse youth groups. The old woman in image 18 holding a placard with inscription "MothersStandWithYouths" adds a crucial layer of moral authority and maternal support. The art piece in image 7 of a young lady holding her little baby visually links the protest's goals to the universal desire for a better future for the next generation. The image of the newly wedded couple in image 19 holding an EndSARSplacard shows that the movement resonated with people at all stages of life.
The Human Face of the Protest
Image 12: the image shows the two young men sleeping at night in front of seemingly embassy and a big placard with inscription WE ARE TIRED OF BEING OPPRESSED is placed beside them
Source: https/www.instgram.com/endsarsphotos
Image 3: the image of a young energetic and half-naked man, with EndSARS-related message in the background and his fellow protesters
Source: https://www.facebook/BBCpidgin.com
These images ground the protest's political messages in personal stories and lived experiences which madethe protest relatable. The two young men sleeping at night in image 12 with their placard "WE ARE TIRED OF BEING OPPRESSED" tell a narrative of weariness and sacrificeto the protest. The young energetic and half-naked man in image 3, with EndSARS-related messages in the background, personifies the raw passion and uninhibited emotion of the movement. The art in image 7 and the photograph in mage 19 (the mother and baby and the newly wedded couple) transform the protest from an abstract political concept into a deeply personal struggle for family and a secure future.
Mainstream and Celebrity Endorsement
Image 17: the image of Nigerian international football player, Victor Osiheme after a crucial football match displaying a white shirt with inscription #ENDPOLICEBRUTALITYINNIGERIA
Source: https://www.instgram.com/endsarsphotos
The power of the hashtag allowed the protest to transcend street demonstrations and enter the global conversation. Image 17 shows Nigerian international football player Victor Osimhen displaying a white shirt with #ENDPOLICEBRUTALITYINNIGERIA. This act leveraged a celebrity's platform to amplify the protest's message to millions of people globally. This underscoresthe key function of Zappavigna's theory of hashtag discourse as a social and cultural force. This image demonstrates how the hashtag acted as a bridge between the local protest and a global audience.
Narratives of Oppression and Resistance
This final theme brings together images that frame the protest as a fundamental struggle between the oppressed populace and the state. The placard in image 12 with its explicit message "WE ARE TIRED OF BEING OPPRESSED" perfectly encapsulates the core conflict. The distressed woman in image 4 and the blindfolded man in image 15 are visual representations of the pain caused by this oppression. These visuals are juxtaposed with images of resistance, such as the young man lifting up a placard with the defiant statement in image 20, "YOUTHS ARE NOT THE ENEMY OF STATE." This image, along with the energetic, half-naked man in image 3, frames the protesters not as enemies of the state, but as a righteous force fighting for justice.
Colour and the Visual Contradiction
The use of colour goes beyond mere symbolism to create a powerful visual contradiction. The Nigerian flag's green and white, which represent nature, agriculture, and peace, are juxtaposed with the visceral red of blood. This visual juxtaposition performs a critical function. The blood, as a high-modality sign of violence and death which emotionally negates the peaceful and prosperous meaning conventionally associated with the flag. This creates a powerful and immediate sense of betrayal. The green-white-green wound bondage on the self-blindfolded man in image 15 further reinforces this. It visually demonstrates that the source of the injury and agony is the very symbol meant to protect him. The same is applicable to the national flag in image 5.
The Protest as a Multimodal Performance
The actions depicted in the images, particularly those involving the human body, can be analyzed as a series of deliberate, multimodal performances
The "self-blindfolded" man with "blood tear rolling down his face" in image 15 and the woman with her mouth covered by a painted hand in image 4 are not mere possession, they are an enactment of the oppression and state of being silenced. They use their bodies to literally perform the narrative of brutality and suppression through the camera for the public empathy.
Again, the act of "sleeping at night" in front of an embassy in image 12 is a peaceful but potent form of protest performance. It is a quiet yet enduring protest that visually demonstrates the protesters' commitment and their daily physical sacrifice.
The Intertextuality and Humour of the Slogans
The slogans do not exist in a vacuum, they draw on shared cultural knowledge that often employ a degree of wit underneath. The inscription "OUR MUMU DON DO" in image 14 is a brilliant example of intertextuality. "Mumu" is a well-known Pidgin term for foolishness in Nigerian palace talk. This slogan references a collective past of passive acceptance and declares its end. The use of this phrase allows the protesters to take a stance of self-awareness. It empowers and frames the protest not just as a reaction to government brutality but as a collective awakening. It is a slogan that is both critical and hopeful.
The Performance of Power and Agency
Beyond simply holding placards, the protesters' physical actions and bodies serve as powerful multimodal resources for enacting power and agency. The act of "preventing vehicular movement at the Lekki Toll Gate" in image 2 is a deliberate, collective performance that visually asserts the protesters' control over a key public space. Similarly, the two young men "sleeping at night" with inscription on a placard stating "WE ARE TIRED OF BEING OPPRESSED" in image 12 uses their bodies to physically personify the struggle. This performance of endurance and sacrifice is a high-modality sign of their unwavering commitment to the cause. It ultimately reinforces the sincerity of the protesters’ demands and challenging the oppressor's authority.
Cultural and Identity Movement
The images collectively construct a representational meaning that positions the protest as a broad cultural and identity movement, not just a political one. The newly wedded couple holding a placard in image 19 challenges the notion that protests are only for a specific set of people in society. It demonstrates that the protest cause is deeply personal and integrated into the very fabric of everyday life. This is further emphasised by the placard's inscription "FIGHT DAY FOR A BETTER TOMORROW" in image 10. The combination of text and image portrays the protest as an act of hope and a collective struggle for a better future. It further defines a shared identity that unites individuals from different walks of life under the banner of the #EndSARShashtag.
The analysis of these 20 multimodal resources reveal how the #EndSARShashtag functioned as the central organising principle for a diverse and powerful sociopolitical movement. Through the lens of Kress and van Leeuwen’s Grammar of Visual Design, we see how each image, from scenes of collective action and individual agony to the symbolic use of national colours, contributed a vital piece to the general narratives. This visual grammar was given cohesion and political meaning by Zappavigna’s theory of hashtag discourse, which highlights how the hashtag served as a contextualisingmetacommentary, a unifying force that transformed disparate visual messages from placards to celebrity endorsements into a single, coherent story of resistance. Ultimately, the protest’s visual and digital discourse worked inseparably, ensuring that its powerful message of defiance, grief, and hope for a better tomorrow was not only seen but also globally understood and archived for posterity.
6. Conclusion
This study concludes that the #EndSARS protest was not merely a series of demonstrations but a complex multimodal campaign in which online and offline discourses intersected to create unified narratives of resistance. Findings reveal that hashtags such as #EndSARS, #EndPoliceBrutality, and #SoroSoke transcended their digital origins to appear on physical protest artefacts, including placards, murals, and T-shirts. This observation supports Bonilla and Rosa’s (2015) conceptualisation of hashtags as performative indexes that bind dispersed voices into collective narratives. Unlike the Ferguson protest context of 2014, the Nigerian experience demonstrates a deeper offline embodiment of digital discourse, extending Egbunike and Olorunnisola’s (2015) study of #BringBackOurGirls by showing how #EndSARS achieved a stronger convergence between digital and physical protest spaces.
The study further found that multimodal protest affordances, particularly the widely circulated blood-stained Nigerian flag, reconfigured national symbols into testimonies of state violence. This aligns with Adebanwi’s (2017) exploration of contested national symbols and extends it by illustrating how digital platforms renegotiate national identity through visual remixing and hashtagging. Similarly, the emergence of the slogan and hashtag “SoroSokeWerey” exemplifies Adejunmobi’s (2021) concept of digital orality, where indigenous linguistic creativity enriches online activism with cultural authenticity and local identity. By embedding colloquial Yoruba expressions into global discourse, protesters transformed informal speech into tools of defiance, humour, and inclusivity.
In multimodal terms, the study corroborates Highfield’s (2016) argument that social media affords layered meaning-making through the interplay of text and visuals. It also extends this perspective by demonstrating how multimodal strategies facilitate collective mobilisation and sociopolitical resistance. Drawing on Scolari’s (2012) media ecology model, the #EndSARS protest illustrates the adaptive circulation of messages across multiple platforms and contexts, maintaining coherence even as meaning shifts across diverse multimodal environments.
This research establishes that the #EndSARS movement exemplified a new phase of multimodal and hybrid activism in Nigeria. Protesters demonstrated advanced multimodal literacy by combining visual, linguistic, and bodily resources to articulate injustice, solidarity, and hope. Hashtags functioned not only as digital markers but as multimodal devices bridging online and offline spheres. This study contributes to broader scholarship on multimodal discourse and digital activism by centering the Nigerian experience and demonstrating that contemporary protest meaning, visibility, and legitimacy emerge through the dynamic interaction of multiple modes.
Several avenues for future research can build on these findings. A comparative multimodal discourse analysis of #EndSARS and other youth-led movements in Africa could reveal shared strategies and culturally specific approaches, providing insights into how digital tools and visual communication are employed across different sociopolitical contexts. Research examining the evolution of the #EndSARS hashtag over time would be valuable, particularly in analysing shifts in meaning and associated visuals from the initial online campaign to physical street protests. Future studies could also investigate how different demographic groups, both within Nigeria and in the global diaspora, interpreted and engaged with the protest’s multimodal discourse. Reception studies of this kind would offer a more comprehensive understanding of the protest’s impact and its role in shaping public opinion.
References
Adebanwi, W. (2016).Nation as Grand Narrative: The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning.University of Rochester Press. ISBN: 9781580465557
Adejunmobi, M. (2021).Digital Orality and African Protest Cultures.African Studies Review, 64(2), 237–256.
Al Jazeera. (2020, October 25). #EndSARS: how Nigeria harness social media against police abuse.
Akinbobola, O. (2021). Digital Resistance and Civic Protest in Nigeria: The #EndSARSMovement.Journal of African Media Studies, 13(2), 189–204.
Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). (2020). Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0.https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf
Bonilla, Y., & Rosa, J. (2015). #Ferguson: Digital Protest, Hashtag Ethnography, and the Racial Politics of Social Media in the United States.American Ethnologist, 42(1), 4–17.
British Psychological Society.(2021). Ethics guidelines for Internet-mediated research.https://www.bps.org.uk
Bruns, A., & Burgess, J. (2015).Twitter hashtags from ad hoc to calculated publics. Social Media + Society, 1(2), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115607335
Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Egbunike, N., &Olorunnisola, A. (2015).Social media and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.Social Media + Society, 1(1), 1–9.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold.
Highfield, T. (2016).Social Media and Everyday Politics.Polity.Jackson, S. J., Bailey, M., & Welles, B. F. (2020).#HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice. MIT Press.
Jewitt, C. (2009). The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis.Routledge.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2021). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Lincoln, Y. S., &Guba, E. G. (1985).Naturalisticinquiry.SAGE Publications.
Machin, D. (2016). Introduction to Multimodal Analysis (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury.
McGregor, S. C. (2019). Social media as public opinion: How journalists use social media to represent public opinion. Journalism, 20(8), 1070–1086. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919845458
Mendes, K., Ringrose, J., & Keller, J. (2019).Digital Feminist Activism: #MeToo and theEveryday Experiences of Platform Politics.Feminist Media Studies, 19(4), 1–15.
Mundt, M., Ross, K., & Burnett, C. M. (2018).Scaling social movements through social media: The case of Black Lives Matter.Social Media + Society, 4(4), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118807911
Ogunderu, A &Afolaranmi, A.O (2024).Social media and political activism in southern Nigeria: a case study of the EndSARS movement mobilisation strategies. SADI International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 11 (4), 1 – 6. DOI: 10.528/zenodo.14002233
Ogungbade, A.O., Huminet, A., Oluwasemilore, A.P., (2024). Impact of social media on youth mobilisation and the Twitter for the 2020 #EndSARS protest in Nigeria. world Journal of Advanced Reasearch and Reviews, 23 (3) 2331 – 2238. DOI: 10.30574/wjart.2024.23.3.2814
Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics. Oxford University Press.
Papacharissi, Z. (2016). Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Poell, T., & van Dijck, J. (2018). Social media and new protest movements. In J. Burgess, A.
Marwick,& T. Poell (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social media (pp. 546–561). SAGE.
Postman, N. (1970).The Reformed English Curriculum. In A.C. Eurich (Ed.), High School 1980: The Shape of the Future in American Secondary Education. Pitman.
Scolari, C. A. (2012). Media Ecology: Exploring the Metaphor to Expand the Theory. Communication Theory, 22(2), 204–225.
Tagg, C. (2015). Exploring Digital Communication: Language in Action.Googlescholar.comTufekci, Z. (2017). Twitter and tear gas: The power and fragility of networked protest. Yale University Press.
Uduak, A. E. (2022). The #EndSARS Protest and the Digital Turn in Nigerian SocialMovements.Africa Development, 47(1), 65–88
Yang, G. (2016).Narrative Agency in Hashtag Activism: The Case of #BlackLivesMatter. Media and Communication, 4(4), 13–17.
Zappavigna, M. (2012).Discourse of Twitter and social media: How we use language to create affiliation on the web. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
0 Comments