POWER AND IDEOLOGY: A MULTIMODAL SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT RODRIGO ROA DUTERTE'S POLITICAL MEMES

As social media continuous to gradually feed information online, ideologies are being introduced, debunked, and challenged. This study analyzed the political memes of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and his administration. Several memes were gathered from numerous Facebook groups. Using Barthes's Rhetoric and Social Semiotics by Hodge and Kress, the meaning resources and power and ideology of the political memes were drawn. The political memes revealed various social meanings which constitute to the social issues of the current administration and the underlying reasons to why these memes were created. Through the use the stated theories and analytic methods, the significance of the political memes was substantiated. With this, it can be inferred that the political memes created under the Duterte administration represent the current social struggles and concerns of the state and the power and ideology President Rodrigo Roa Duterte holds, whether these political memes may be satire in nature or for purely amusement purposes.