Content-Based Analysis of Bumper Stickers in Jordan

Abstract

This study has set out to investigate bumper stickers in Jordan focusing mainly on the themes of the stickers. The study hypothesized that bumper stickers in Jordan reflect a wide range of topics including social, economic, and political. Due to being the first study of this phenomenon, the study has adopted content-based analysis to determine the basic topics. The study has found that the purpose of most bumper sticker is fun and humor; most of them are not serious and do not carry any biting messages. They do not present any criticism to the most dominant problems at the level of society including racism, nepotism, anti-feminism, inflation, high taxes, and refugees. Another finding is that politics is still a taboo; no political bumper stickers were found in Jordan. Finally, the themes the stickers targeted are: lessons of life 28.85 %; challenging or warning other drivers 16%; funny notes about social issues 12%; religious sayings 8%; treating the car as a female 7%; the low economic status of the driver 6%; love and treachery 5.5%; the prestigious status of the car 5%; envy 4%; nicknames for the car or the driver 4%; irony 3 %; and English sayings 1.5 %.

The Pragmatic Meanings of Car Stickers in Jordan

“…The present study, as outlined above, is an attempt to explore the illocutionary forces of car stickers in Jordan, demonstrating how people could implicitly communicate their feelings and thoughts. Unlike Jaradat's (2016) study which associates car stickers with fun and humour only, marginalizing their role in criticizing social, economic and political challenges, the present study demonstrates that car stickers in Jordan are a double-edged weapon; they are a source of fun and entertainment while implicitly communicating and raising criti-cism against social, economic and political challenges. This has motivated the researchers to examine this phenomenon and investigate the illocutionary forces of car stickers and their implicit meanings.…”

“…This study would be different from Jaradat's (2016) in that it would be a pragmatic (where some car stickers' inscriptions are extended metonymically or metaphorically to communicate indirect meanings) analysis of car stickers in Jordan. That said, the pragmatic implicatures of the indirectly communicated short messages would be discussed in the present paper.…”

Graffiti Inside Jordanian Public Transport Vehicles

“…As indicated, studies conducted in the Arab setting (e.g. Alkurdi, 2016;El-Nashar & Nayef, 2016;Hazaymeh, 2007;Jaradat, 2016) investigate the functions or themes of graffiti written on vehicles. In contrast, the current study investigates the communicative categories and subcategories of graffiti written inside Jordanian public transport vehicles.…”

The Values of Psychological Science: Student and Faculty Perspectives on Research Ethics

“…published studies were identified. Some were simple content analyses of the most common sticker themes or their semantics (AlMomani, Ahmad Jaradat, BaniKhair, Mohammad, & Alshaboul, 2017;Case, 1992;Endersby, & Towle, 1996;Jaradat, 2016;Stern & Solomon, 1992). Other studies went beyond simple classification and included speculation about the symbolic meaning of stickers for issues such as gender (Noble & Baldwin, 2001), religion (Chiluwa, 2008), family identity (Doyle & Tranter, 2015), law (Doyle & Tranter, 2016), consumer perceptions (Belk, 1988), national identity (Kriznar, 1993), and political discourse (Bloch, 2000a(Bloch, , 2000bSalamon, 2005).…”

“…The studies were of limited value to the present study because empirical support for the interpretations was very limited or even nonexistent in some cases (e.g., Doyle & Tranter, 2015;Noble & Baldwin, 2001). In addition, many of these studies were conducted outside of the United States, notably in Australia (Doyle & Tranter, 2015;Doyle & Tranter, 2016;Noble & Baldwin, 2001), Israel (Bloch, 2000a(Bloch, , 2000bSalamon, 2005), Jordan (AlMomani et al, 2017Jaradat, 2016), Nigeria (Chiluwa, 2008), and Slovenia (Kriznar, 1993). The number of discourse and semiotic studies on bumper stickers far exceeded those on the psychological effects.…”