| Abstract: |
Insecurity in educational institutions has become one of the most pressing challenges in North-Central
Nigeria, shaping how students, teachers, and the wider society talk about safety and learning. Beyond news
reports, images and cartoons have become powerful tools through which these issues are framed and
debated. This study explores how such visual texts use language and other semiotic resources to tell stories
about insecurity, influence public opinion, and reflect shared fears and expectations. Guided by Multimodal
Discourse Analysis (MDA), the research focuses on a selection of images and editorial cartoons published
between 2020 and 2024 in newspapers, online news outlets, and social media. Drawing on Systemic
Functional Linguistics and Kress and van Leeuwen?s visual grammar, the study examines how features
such as colour, composition, gaze, gesture, and captions combine to create meaning. It looks at the ways
these multimodal choices highlight victims? vulnerability, portray students and teachers as at risk, depict
security agencies as either protective or inadequate, and sometimes use satire to criticise government
response. The findings show that the interaction of visual and verbal elements does more than inform; it
shapes public understanding of insecurity in schools and universities and often reflects wider struggles over
trust, responsibility, and hope for safer learning spaces. By analysing these patterns, the study demonstrates
how language and image work together to create social meanings that influence discourse on education and
security. This research contributes to language and linguistic studies by highlighting the importance of
multimodal texts in contemporary communication. It shows that meaning is not carried by words alone but
also by the visual forms that accompany them-an insight crucial for understanding how public conversations
about insecurity are shaped in Nigeria today. |
EBONYI JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE
