A Multimodal Approach to Analyzing the Environmental Banners and Billboards of Tehran Municipality

This study was designed to analyze the environmental banners and billboards concerning the two environmental crises of “water shortage" and "air pollution", displayed between 1393/2014 and 1394/2015 by Tehran municipality. They were analyzed using the three dimensional texts approach, a branch of multimodality discourse analysis. The main question was: How can the environmental banners and billboards help reduce the environmental crises of “water shortage" and "air pollution", in Tehran metropolis? The assumption was that if no contrast was observed between the components of the banners and billboards (=the three dimensional texts) and those of the approach, the environmental advertisements (=the visual images) on the banners and billboards would have the capacity to be understood and appreciated by the readers/viewers. If not, some changes would be needed. In this descriptive-analytic study, 11 samples were analyzed. In general, the results were in line with Ravelli (2008), although some contrasts were observed as well. It was concluded that some limited changes were needed in some of the components to encourage perfect understanding of the messages by the viewers and readers