Multimodal resources in the ‘Get It Together’ reproductive health campaign in Nigeria

Abstract

This study analyses the use of multimodal semiotic resources in the Family Planning campaign materials of the Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative’s (NURHI) ‘Get It Together’ (GIT) campaign which aims to persuade individuals and families, families to adopt family planning and thus significantly reduce the country’s high fertility and maternal mortality rate. Using Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) visual grammar in Reading Images and Van Leeuwen’s (2008) social actor framework in Discourse and Practice, combined with research in the Nigerian social and cultural context, the study finds that the campaign uses both visual and verbal means to create awareness of contraceptive methods and to counter misconceptions about them. The author also finds that the campaign primarily addresses married couples and includes people from different ethnoreligious backgrounds, but excludes young people, subtly affirming ‘sexual abstinence’ before marriage. Furthermore, the campaign uses a range of strategies for persuading Nigerians to adopt family planning, including linking the adoption of family planning to the benefits of a modern urban lifestyle, engaging religious and community leaders as supporters of the campaign and countering patriarchal traditions by promoting the participation of men in family planning.