Youth Graffiti and Mural Art as Forms of Discourse: A Critical Analysis of Social and Political Meaning
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31185/wjfh.Vol22.Iss1.1516Keywords:
Mural, graffiti, identity, political ideologies, visual discourse, youth, multimodalAbstract
The study aims at examining youth mural art as a persuasive verbal and non-verbal discourse that supports or encounters socio-political ideologies in city public settings. The central goals are to discover the role of youth graffiti and mural art as communicative practices and social political fears, as well as to regulate how visual and textual components in street art articulate, challenge, or replicate ideological positions. The study used an eclectic model, combining Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (1995) (CDA) at three levels with Kress & van Leeuwen’s Multimodal Discourse Analysis (2006) (MDA). The data were collected from websites referencing various murals from different countries, such as Belfast, Mexico City, Beirut, Cape Town, Bethlehem, and London. The study validates how mural art reflects emotional community bonds and reshapes community identities, shared memories, and conflict narratives through comprehensive visual and linguistic analysis.
Downloads
References
References
Al-khawaldeh, N. Bani-K., Mashaqba , B. & Huneety, N.(2016). A Corpus-Based Discourse
Analysis Study of WhatsApp Messenger’s Semantic Notifications.International
Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature .Vol. 5 No. 6 .
Al-Khawaldeh, N. , Mashaqba,B , AlKhawaldeh,S , Anas Al huneety, A & Alqbaila,N.(2024).
Irony and rhetorical devices in Jordanian Arabic social media discourse.
International Journal of Society, Culture, & Language, 12(2), 2024.
Abdalhadi, S., Al-Khawaldeh,N., Al Huneety, N., & Mashaqba,B. (2023). Pragmatic
Strategies in Jordanians’ Facebook status updates during COVID-19.
www.elsevier.com/locate/amper
Barnet-Sánchez, H., & Helland, J. (1995). Rivera, Kahlo, and Mexican Modernism. New
York: American Federation of Arts.
Banksy. (2005). Bethlehem Mural Palestine. The Walled Off Hotel
mural. Retrieved from https://www.banksy.co.uk/walledoffhotel
Bourgois, P. (2003). In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge University
Press.
Castleman, C. (1982). Getting Up: Subway Graffiti in New York. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Chicago Public Art Program. (2021). Chicago Mural (USA).Community resistance mural,
Bronzeville neighborhood [Photograph]. Retrieved from
https://www.chicago.gov/publicart
Chaffee, L. (1993). Political Protest and Street Art: Popular Tools for Democratisation in
Hispanic Countries. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Chilvers, I. (2004). The Oxford Dictionary of Art (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
P, 364.
Chalfant, H., & Prigoff, J. (1987). Spraycan Art. London: Thames & Hudson. Cockcroft, E.,
Weber, J., & Cockcroft, J. (1998). Toward a People's Art.
University of New Mexico Press. p. 71
Cockcroft, E., Weber, J., & Cockcroft, J. (1977). Toward a People’s Art: The Contemporary
Mural Movement. New York: Dutton.
District Six Museum. (2019). District Six Mural Cape Town, South Africa. Memory of
forced removals mural [Photograph]. Retrieved from
https://www.districtsix.co.za/murals
El Refaie, E. (2020). Visual Metaphor and Embodiment in Graphic Illness Narratives.
Oxford University Press. p. 88
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language.
Longman, pp 2, 55
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change.Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Polity Press.
Ferrell, J. (1995). Urban Graffiti: Crime, Control, and Resistance. Youth & Society, 27(1),
73–92.
Ferrell, J. (1996). Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality. Boston:
Northeastern University Press.
Goldman, S. M. (1994). Dimensions of the Americas: Art and Social Change in Latin
America and the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Goldman, S. (2013). Revolutionary Art in Latin America. University of Texas Press. p. 49
Janson, H. W., & Janson, A. F. (2001). History of Art (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall.Page 62.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.
Routledge. pp. 13, 19
Lucie-Smith, E. (2003). The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms.London: Thames &
Hudson. Page 146.
Lveson, K. (2010). The Wars on Graffiti and the New Military Urbanism. City, 4(1-2), 21–
36.(115–134.)
Macdonald, N. (2001). The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London
and New York. New York: Palgrave.
Omar A. W. (2025).A Critical Discourse Analysis of the U.S.- Canada Tariffs’ News
arrative: Affiliation or Patriotism?. Wasit Journal for Human Sciences /Vol.
21/Iss4/2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31185/wjfh.Vol21.Iss4.120
Rolston, B. (1991). Politics and Painting: Murals and Conflict in Northern Ireland.
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 22
Serafini, F. (2014). Reading the Visual: An Introduction to Teaching Multimodal Literacy.
Teachers College Press. p. 137
Snyder, G. J. (2009). Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York’s Urban Underground.
NYU Press.
Serafini, F. (2014). Reading the Visual: An Introduction to Teaching Multimodal Literacy.
Teachers College Press. p. 137
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Lect. Dr. Afrah Abdulqader Jassim Al-Ukaydi

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

