Abstract :
In Benin metropolis, outdoor HIV/AIDS campaign messages have been coined and passed to the populace through the use of pictures and texts. Previous studies on HIV/AIDS campaign messages in Nigeria were mostly on indoor campaigns, such as media messages, newspapers, etc. The present study is the first semiotic analysis of outdoor HIV/AIDS campaign messages. It aims to explore the effectiveness of the messages to the populace. The data for this semiotic analysis were collected from HIV/AIDS posters and billboards, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and In-depth interviews (IDI) in the five local government areas (LGAs) in Benin Metropolis. The respondents aged between 15 and 65 years and were purposively selected for this research. Barthes’ (1997) Semiotics Theory of images was adopted for the analysis of pictorial data. Results indicated that the literate audiences of Benin metropolis could decode indirect or figurative HIV/AIDS pictorial messages in English; however, the illiterate respondents could only give surface interpretation to the pictorial signs, and the pictorial messages were not effective on the illiterate respondents. It was concluded that outdoor campaign messages using indigenous languages and pictorial depictions should be encouraged with reservation.
