Att knyta näven i fickan? : En studie av socialdemokratiska och kommunistiska 1 maj-affischer 1922-1948 utifrån begreppet vredeskultur

Sammanfattning: This study is intended to illustrate how the reformist and revolutionary directions in the labor movement are manifested and visualized in the empirical material with regard to angry culture, thus contributing to an understanding of the informative importance of the image. It is clear that the investigated material in the form of social democratic and communist 1 May posters from the period 1922-1948 reflects its time (the interwar period to the post-war era) with regard to angry culture.  It is not the aesthetic aspect that is central, but the historical and political perspective in terms of information transmission. This study focuses on how to understand a historical period through an image material. The study aims to answer the question of what kind of information is communicated built on an analysis based on a combination of semiotics and hegemony analysis of the empirical material. Using the semiotic concepts denotation and connotation, the posters are analyzed in detail in the image analysis in combination with Stuart Hall's three hypothetical positions (codes), Antonio Gramsci’s hegemony concept, primarily in the form of “war of position” and “historic blocs”, is used to understand the historical period investigated. This method triangulation increases the credibility of the results. As far as the study and its results are concerned, it can be noted that the social democratic 1 May posters before 1936 (Social Democrats’ power access) with regard to “sublimed wrath” mainly represent consensus across class boundaries. The communist 1 May posters from that period, however, primarily represent “class war” and stand for “open anger”. After the Social Democrats’ access to power, it is clear that they constitute a historic bloc and that the communists are forced to adopt a more defensive approach, pronounced in drained paroles with a vague content. The conclusion with regard to the visual transmission of political and historical information and messages regarding social democratic and communistic 1 May posters from 1922-1948, based on socialist angry cultures is that the period between the wars was characterized by class struggle versus consensus, World War ll reduced everything to “hold together” and post-war time represents the starting point for the welfare state, as a successful consequence of the social democratic “dignity project”.