Framing and Temporality in Political Cartoons: A Critical Analysis of Visual News Discourse*

Abstract

Les caricatures politiques constituent une forme visuelle du discours des médias. Les sociologues rejettent généralement leur valeur idéologique en raison du fait qu'elles offrent aux lecteurs des exposés absurdes des conditions du « problème » putatif et ne doivent pas être prises au pied de la lettre. Toutefois, c'est par l'humour que les caricatures se sont emparées du bon sens et l'ont renfoncé, et par conséquent ont permis au public de classifier, d'organiser et d'inter‐préter activement ce qu'ils perçoivent ou vivent relativement à l'actu‐alité dans le monde à un moment donné de façon significative. Dans le cadre des théories interactionnistes de Goffman et de Mead, deux caricatures illustrant la dernière « crise » des « vagues d'immigration » déferlant au Canada seront étudiées. Political cartoons are a form of visual news discourse. Sociologists normally dismiss their ideological import on the grounds that cartoons simply offer newsreaders absurd accounts of putative “problem” conditions and are not likely to be taken very seriously. Nevertheless, it is through comedic conventions that cartoons seize upon and reinforce common sense and thus enable the public to actively classify, organize and interpret in meaningful ways what they see or experience about the world at a given moment. Informed by the interactionist theories of Goffman and Mead, two cartoons illustrating the recent “crisis” of “migrant waves” to Canada will be examined.

Every story tells a picture: Lessons from cartoons on corporate governance

“…According to political cartoon theory, there is also a strong normative component to political cartoons. Greenberg (2002) asserts that cartoons frame a contemporary political or social issue by defining problems, diagnosing causes, making moral judgments, and suggesting remedies. Reported news is supposed to be objective, but political cartoons are able to mix normative prescriptions with factual beliefs, thus magnifying or exaggerating public opinions and perspectives of newsworthy issues.…”

Constructing the Past through the Present in News Discourse: The Case of Soma

“…And finally, when the fact that news coverage cannot be spared from the dominant socio-political configuration of a certain context, the journalists' narrations carry the potential of presenting a version of the event(s) at hand as the only correct one. Bearing the risks in mind, starting from Greenberg's (2002) point that "social problems become "visible" to mass publics (…) only when they are socially defined within "knowledge or knowledge-processing" institutions such as the mass media" (p. 182), in this article we take issue with the representations of the past in news discourse. In so doing, we rely on a critical analysis of the temporal structures of news articles related to the mine explosion in Soma, Turkey, in May 2014 through the publications of "the center", of the left, of the conservative, and finally social liberal newspapers.…”

“…The chronological "events in time" pattern can be contrasted to the cyclical "time in events" pattern, in which the passage of time is highly contextualized and meaningful, observed in the immediate past. It can be argued that the two patterns seem to work together in the news coverage of the network society of late modern times: the cyclical pattern works through the emphasis on the nowness of the event at hand, while the chronological pattern is instrumentalized in selectively referring to the background to the event in order to appeal to the collective memory of the readers (See Greenberg, 2002;Edy, 1999).…”

Have you been to ‘The Arctic’? Frame theory and the role of media coverage in shaping Arctic discourse

“…As discussed above, given the general unfamiliarity with the Arctic among the American public, the process of domestication can be especially important in media presentations of Arctic issues. Finally, Greenberg (2002) more clearly explains a fourth process identified by Morris (1993): 'opposition', 'whereby the complexity of a problem or event is reduced to a binary struggle'. While not as active in the Kallaugher cartoon, this process can be seen in the opposition between the animal discussion at the surface and the submarine battle below.…”