Countercultural Communications

1 Countercultural Communications Communication Form The selected communication form is graffiti, as depicted below.

Written Submission Structure A youth peace ambassador is delivering the message. The artist is a member of youth peacebuilders across the globe who work with conflict-affected communities. The peace ambassador actively advocates for human rights, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding awareness. Most of the work created by this creator has been aimed at educating the public to add their voice to ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

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2 The Graffiti is posted in a public alley, and it is directed at human rights activists to add to their voice in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. The graffiti feature a merge of the Ukraine and Russia flags and a crack in-between, signifying the conflict between the two nations. A bleeding eye sketch is embedded on the Ukrainian flag, signifying that it is the most adversely affected partner in the conflict. The graffiti also includes a caption to stop the war as a call to action, which it promotes. Whereas graffiti may be considered a simple communication form, it is a powerful form of conveying a symbolic image calling the involved parties to act on an ongoing issue affecting the community.

Discussion and Analysis Graffiti has been regarded as a pervasive symbolic communication form. Whereas it mostly seems an incomprehensible language that only an insider can decode, such is not the case.

It incorporates a message and content that can be analyzed based on the context under which it is presented. Drawing upon Burke's concept of the negative and Foucault's notion of power to turn around the audience's interpretation of graffiti, it is expected that the audience will decode the intended message from the communication form (Gross & Gross, 2016).

Graffiti is perceived as a countercultural approach to communication about the war and adds a youthful voice to promote peace. The approach used in the graffiti campaign for peace is based on protest and defiance. Further, the graffiti represents the two parties in the war as represented by their flags and the call to action to end the war. The created graffiti is an eyecatching artistic representation that will be displayed on a public allay in the urban suburbs and shared on online social media platforms (Gross & Gross, 2016). The communication using the graffiti is symbolic, leading to the audience understanding the motivation behind the need to end the war and conflict between Russia and Ukraine for global peace. Social media networks such

3 as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram have been flooded with messages on the need to end the Russia Ukraine conflict (Gross & Gross, 2016). Graffiti has been considered the best method to achieve the purpose of creating an appeal to add to their voice on ending the war between Russia and Ukraine and get the human rights groups to add their voice to the call to peace would be by sharing the graffiti on social media, particularly Twitter.

Ideally, graffiti as a form of communication suits the organization, audience, and purpose. The youth peace ambassador effectively uses the graffiti to target human rights organizations by applying defiance to call them to act on the conflict. The audience in this context includes human rights organizations, and graffiti communicating defiance would likely influence them to act. The purpose of the graffiti is achieved as the "stop war" that appears on the two countries' flags, calling for order and peace in the two countries. Therefore, graffiti would effectively achieve the intended goal aspect of defiance. The human rights groups need to remind them that they are powerful, and their voice could count in ending the war.

The opportunities/affordances that graffiti offers over other forms of countercultural communication is an effective way of protesting and defying the ongoing war. The expression is powerful as it merges both context and message, displaying a unique symbol of expression. The graffiti also includes a symbolic display of the two nations' flags and the call to action to stop the war.

There have been numerous social media campaigns aimed at ending the conflict between the two nations; thus, the countercultural communication form strives to add to the voice of human rights and other interest groups to add voice to end the war. Graffiti has a significant connection to the war and conflict, and the role that the human rights organization should take up in calling to the selected countercultural communication is graffiti aimed at highlighting the

4 conflict and war between Ukraine and Russia and the need to end the war to promote peace between the two countries. The street art graffiti targets youths impacted by war and conflict societal issues. The goal of the graffiti is to propagate a pro-peace narrative calling upon the public to add to their voice on calling for an end to the war in Ukraine. The objective is also to present a balanced focus on the conflict and call for an end to the war without taking a sided position in the conflict. It is hoped that the graffiti will attract the attention of global human rights activists to add their voices to end the war between the two countries.

The conventionally associated forms of communication in relaying issues related to war and conflicts involve communicating calmly and agreeably rather than using defiance. Conflict resolution mainly entails using neutral language and an arbitration approach to influence the parties to arbitrate. I would practice detournement on the conventional methods to include graffiti to convey the anti-war message if the two messages are combined to achieve a better outcome in spreading the anti-war crusade. Nonetheless, the defiance and call to action associated with graffiti countercultural communication would effectively influence the human rights activists to add to their voice in ending the war. The context of the highlighted graffiti and its strategic display in a public space to influence defiance behavior is a practical expression of meaning imposed in the contextual power of public space to influence public defiance.

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Reference Gross, D. D., & Gross, T. D. (2016). The Meaning of Graffiti: An Interpretation. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 342-347.