REPRESENTATION OF PALESTINE SOLIDARITY IN SOCIAL MEDIA: A SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO SYMBOLS OF RESISTANCE

Social media plays an important role in voicing support for Palestine in the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The prolonged conflict between Palestine and Israel has triggered emotional reactions among netizens around the world. Support for Palestine can be seen through various posts, hashtags, social media campaigns, and symbols as a form of support and solidarity with Palestine. One of the symbols used as a symbol of resistance is the watermelon. However, the symbol of Palestinian resistance is not only watermelon. There are many other symbols of Palestinian resistance besides watermelon, such as Jaffa orange, map of Palestine, olive, thyme, cactus, dove, etc. These symbols have contextual meaning characteristics that make them attractive to research. This research aims to describe the representation of Palestinian solidarity symbols on social media from a semiotic perspective. This research uses a descriptive qualitative approach with semiotic analysis techniques of Charles Sanders Peirce's sign, object, and interpretant theory. The results showed that symbols have meaning, and each symbol represents Palestinian struggle, culture, identity, and hope.