Nykterhetsrörelsens visuella kommunikation : En semiotisk studie av bild- och symbolspråket hos fanor och standar tillhörande Independent Order of Good Templars och Svenska Blåbandsföreningen

Sammanfattning: This essay aims to investigate the visual and symbolic language of banners and standards belonging to two Swedish temperance organizations, the Independent Order of Good Templars, and the Swedish Blue-Ribbon Movement. The examined material is 98 banners and standards from Folkrörelsearkivet för Uppsala län. Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson's semiotic starting point in the article "Semiotics and Art History" (1991), mainly based on Charles Sanders Peirce's semiosis, has been used as the method of analysis. Support has also been taken from Roland Barthes' semiotic concepts of denotation and connotation. Visual culture studies, with support from Nicolas Mirzoeff's Introduction to Visual Culture (1999) has been used as a theoretical and structural starting point of the essay. The analysis has shown a rich use of symbolic signs within the material, and that – and how – the use of said symbolic signs is both similar and different between the organizations. The analysis has further demonstrated the possibility to interpret meaning which were communicated through the banners and the standards visual and symbolic language. In the essay's discussion, these meanings have been divided into different themes which can be said to reflect the ideals, ideas, and activities of the organizations. The visual communication is understood based on the activities and religious history of the organizations, and on the political, social, historical, and cultural context of the collective symbols.