Discourse and Ideology in Graphic Design Manifestos: A Comparative Analysis Based on Critical Discourse Theory

This study examines five fundamental manifestos that have created significant turning points in the field of graphic design—First Things First (1964), First Things First 2000, An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth (1998), The Decolonising Design Manifesto (2019) and The Karlskrona Manifesto for Sustainability Design (2014)—using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). In addition to defining aesthetic tendencies, manifestos are also known to be a discursive tool that reveals ideological conflicts and calls the designer subject to certain positions. The theoretical foundation of the study is based on Fairclough's three-dimensional discourse model, Althusser's ideology and interpellation theory, Foucault's knowledge/power relations, and van Dijk's ideological discourse analysis. The analyses demonstrate that manifestos produce ideological structures at textual, discursive, and social levels. In this context, it can be said that the study demonstrates that graphic design manifestos also function as ethical, political, and cultural intervention tools. Keywords: Graphic Design Manifestos, Critical Discourse Analysis, Ideology and Design, Political Visual Culture.