A trajectory of a mediational means in protest: the hand placard in South Korea’s Candlelight Protests

Abstract

While positioning this research within the growing body of scholarship related to linguistic landscape of protest, we illustrate a distinctive form of analysis. Rather than giving a generalized, extensive, or quantitative description, we focus on a qualitative and in-depth analysis of a single protest tool in relation to protest actions and space-making. Drawing on the concept of “mediational means” from mediated discourse analysis, we analyze the linguistic and semiotic functions and effects of sonp’aenmal (hand placard), a protest tool uniformly and widely employed during South Korea’s 2016–2017 Candlelight Protests. Based on a corpus of protest images and our autoethnographic accounts of direct participation, we examine why this sign emerged as an important tool in the protest space, how it was utilized ritually and creatively, and the effects of its use on protesters’ experiences, sensitivity, and identity. Competing discursive effects caused by its uniform design and widespread use are discussed further.