This doctoral thesis verses upon the “woke” phenomenon, which was originally associated with Critical Race Theory (Crenshaw et al., 1995) and the defence of African-American communities, but which today refers to a wide range of movements and ideals related to “antiracism, intersectional feminism, transexual rights and the critical stories of colonialism” (García, 2023, p. 144), to cite some instances. Previous literature (Cammaerts, 2022; Sobande et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2023; Madrid-Gil, 2023) has explored the movement from social and cultural perspectives, as well as through the use of language, which constitutes the main distinctive tool between the supporters and detractors of the movement. However, to date, few studies have analysed the “woke” phenomenon from a multimodal point of view, that is, by studying the combination of different semiotic models.

Therefore, the present doctoral thesis pursues the following general objectives: (1) to explore the use of multimodal language in social media with respect to the “woke” phenomenon, and (2) to evaluate the existing polarisation between those who support the movement and those who take a stance against it, analysing the construction of “woke” and “anti-woke” cultures. Considering the multimodal nature of the corpus that will be employed, the analysis will be based mainly on Multimodal Discourse Analysis (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001, 2006), which focuses on how meaning is created through the use of multiple semiotic modes, as opposed to just language.

The corpus will consist of a sample of text and images retrieved from Instagram, which will be searched from a list of relevant hashtags related to the movement. The results of the study, as well as offering a detailed overview on the use of multimodal language concerning the “woke” movement, could also be extrapolated to other relevant areas such as social justice and its politics, intersectional gender studies, or critical pedagogy and education.