1100total visits.
http://doi.org/10.33234/SSR.22.9
Simeon Ajiboye
University of Augsburg, Germany
oyezed@gmail.com
Shirley Olatunji
University of Kansas, USA
Abstract
Malaria is perceived as a deadly disease affecting most communities in the world, despite ceaseless medical and media efforts, including targeted advertisements aimed at raising awareness and prevention. Previous studies concentrated on the visual and linguistic aspects of malaria advertisements but have neglected the advertisers’ communicative intentions regarding malaria. This study centres on the advertisers’ communicative intentions as conveyed through various metaphoric mappings in malaria e-advertisements, using the theoretical resources of Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory. The data for this study comprises 20 YouTube videos. The findings reveal two metaphors in the e-advertisements: “Malaria as a threat” and “Malaria as a struggle,” with sub-metaphors such as “malaria as a killer,” “malaria as a thief,” “malaria as a destroyer,” “malaria as a battle,” and “malaria as a disease.” Theoretically, this study deepens our understanding of metaphors’ crucial role in health communication, demonstrating how they shape perceptions and drive behavioural change.
Keywords: Metaphor, E-advertisement, metaphoric mapping, malaria, communicative intention