Musik och motstånd : En analys av musikreferenser och protestskyltarnas visuella uttryck under No Kings-demonstrationerna

Sammanfattning

This paper examines how pop culture, with focus on music references, are used on protestsigns in the No Kings protest from 2025 to get a better understanding on how the originalmaterial changes, why the references are being used, how the graphic design is taking shapeand in what way these references are applied on the signs. Using Gillian Rose’sfour-sites-model for visual analysis, five protest signs, referencing different artists indifferent genres, from the No Kings protests are analysed. The result shows that thereferences are used to strengthen group identity, spread the protest and give it more power.Using references brings some of the original meanings and associations with the work intothe new interpretation and context to give it a different message that is deeper than what thesign initially says. Because most of the protest signs are not professionally made they can beused to give graphic designers an idée on what people are drawn to, both in pop culture and style.