In recent years, the cartoons genre has gained considerable research interest across disciplines; for example, communication, media studies and health sciences. More so, cartoons serve as potent source of data used to study social phenomena. This paper aims at illustrating how political cartoons are used as a vehicle of setting social agenda in Nigerian newspapers to reorient and shape the public opinion through recurrent depictions mirroring current socio-political issues at a given period. The cartoons texts were excerpted from two major Nigerian newspapers, Daily Trust and Vanguard during the period 2007-2010. One-hundred cartoons were selected using purposive sampling technique. Fifty cartoons were taken from each newspaper magazine. Specifically, content analysis was used to identify the themes contained in the cartoons depictions. Qualitative method was used to analyze the cartoons through semiotic analysis. The analysis is mainly concerned with the interpretation of the sign system based on the connotation and denotation elements in the cartoons. The results indicated that 80% of the themes focused on substantive issues through which social agenda is set to reflect social practices in the Nigerian social political contexts. Also, the results showed that Nigerian political cartoons set social agenda by mainly encapsulating current and sensitive issues that people are much concerned about. Finally, the study has identified the lack of supportive and clearly defined theoretical background in analyzing political cartoons as a major problem in previous cartoons research. Thus, this paper contributes to the cartoon research by offering theoretical insight to the cartoon genre through agenda setting theory of media effect.
Political cartoons constitute a form of media text whose verbal and visual elements have made them an interesting research field across academic disciplines. The 21st century has witnessed a considerable research on political cartoons. This increasing research interest indicates that political cartoons have successfully constituted a distinct multimodal genre within media discourses. Political cartoons are used to express opinions, construct valuable arguments and provide specific knowledge on contemporary social issues. However, the analysis of the cartoons from linguistic perspectives remains under-researched. This paper aims at contributing to the knowledge of political cartoon research by analyzing the linguistic elements used in the cartoon written texts to illustrate how Nigerian cartoonists specifically use language to construct satire as a means that could be used perhaps to initiating positive social and political reforms in Nigeria. The method of analysis used in this paper as its framework of analysis, comprises of perceptual theory of satire and linguistic analytical framework within the realm of critical discourse analysis. Semiotic discussion on semiotic modes of the cartoons has also been incorporated in the analysis. From the findings of the study, a distinct lexical topology for identifying lexical items and their distribution in the cartoon written texts has been developed. The topology comprises of five items as follows: loan word, coinage, word class, denotation and connotation. Additionally, Nigerian cartoonists use interjections frequently in the cartoon written texts to create satirical impressions about political leaders, because interjections are used to express a strong emotions or feelings. Given the linguistic and nonlinguistic elements contained in the cartoon texts, cartoons could be harnessed to provide additional insights on how language is specifically used in media discourse.
The communicative functions of humor and its visual power have made political cartoons an interesting research field across academic disciplines. The first decade of the Millennium has witnessed a considerable research on editorial cartoons. This increasing research demonstrates that editorial cartoons have successfully constituted a genuine genre within media discourse. Cartoons are used to express opinions, construct valuable arguments and provide specific knowledge on contemporary social issues. The goal of the genre is to provide political commentary, address crucial issues and criticize political leaders and their contemptible practices in an artful fashion. In a nutshell, the genre serves as a medium of political reporting articulating a particular message from a particular point of view using language as its prime tool. Given their contents mostly expressed through visual illustrations, political cartoons are best understood through investigation of incorporated visual rhetoric. This paper aims at unfolding the nature and function of humor in Nigerian political cartoons using theoretical perspectives of humor as method of analysis. To this end, content analysis was used to sort out contents of the cartoons. 35 cartoons texts were extracted from the two most prominent Nigerian newspapers namely: Vanguard and Daily Trust. The findings indicated that cartoonists use humor in Nigerian political cartoons to relive audiences of stressful situations and persuade them towards making opinion on contemporary issues in society. More specifically, Nigerian cartoonists manipulate aggressive and affliative humor styles purposely to construct criticisms pointed to political leaders and comment on current socio-political issues of the moment in order to initiate social and political reforms.
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