READING POWER THROUGH IMAGES: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PAKISTANI DRAMA COVER PAGES

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the critical discourse analysis of Pakistani drama cover pages. The cover pages can emphasize social relations, power ideologies, and cultural effects. Fairclough’s three-dimensional (3D) models were used to analyze power relations and multimodal analysis to analyze the visual effects of the cover page. Fairclough’s model analyzed the data at three different levels: textual, interpretive, and social. The MDA also analyzed the visual effects at three levels: representational, interactional, and compositional meanings. Data collection involved six drama cover pages of Pakistani dramas. The dramas are Cheekh, Baaghi, Dayyan, Gunah, Iqtidar, and Judwaa. The channels involved are also six: Hum TV, ARY Digital, Geo TV, Express TV, Green entertainment and Urdu 1. The researcher also gave a comparative analysis of all these channels and how they strategically promote their dramas. The drama cover pages emphasized the power relations of characters. It highlighted the gaze, body language, color palette, face expressions, and lighting. These features describe the symbolism of all the features involved in the drama cover page. The colors can symbolize power, conflict, rebellious attitudes, and even transformations of characters. Together, both models describe all the visual elements of drama cover pages and also analyze their cultural aspects.