Den visuelle Osama bin Laden

Tema for denne artikkelen er den visuelle Osama bin Laden. Visuelle multimodale og retoriske perspektiver på hans popularitet og makt presenteres gjennom analyser av bin Ladens originale arabiske tekster. Artikkelen viser hvordan bin Laden visuelt ble fremstilt de siste femten årene av sitt liv, og hvordan hans lederrolle tok form. Her demonstreres også hvordan de visuelle fremstillingene av ham kan ha bidratt til å befeste hans image som en leder gjennom å repetere og understreke bin Ladens verbale retorikk.

Much has been written about Osama bin Laden’s verbal rhetoric, whereas the visual rhetoric is so far almost unexplored as a field of research. This article’s center of attention is therefore on the ways in which al-Qaida’s former leader Osama bin Laden’s persona has been staged through visual rhetoric, and how these visual means contributed to establishing his image as a leader. An important factor for understanding bin Laden’s rhetoric is the progression of his verbal and visual rhetorical style. Light will therefore be shed on how bin Laden has been staged through multimodal resources during the last decade, progressing from a mujahid via a statesman to his appearances as a mythical hero with more of a symbolic function. The analyses are based on bin Laden’s original Arabic texts and analyzed through the theory of visual rhetoric and multimodality.