Abstract
Newspaper cartoons say what verbal discourse structures find difficult to do. Having symbolic significance and carrying social and ideological meanings, these caricatures influence public opinion as strongly as any other genre of discourse. Like other powerful print medias of the world, Pakistan’s English print media has a long history of cartoon coverage during historically remarkable political events. One such coverage was seen, in 2014, during the anti-government marches which followed months of sit-ins by PTI and PAT-two mainstream opposition parties of Pakistan. The cartoon coverage of these sit-ins by the print media played a vital role in manipulating public opinion in favor of either of the two sides-the government or the opposition. In the back drop of sit-in events, this research aimed to unveil how the cartoon coverage by the mainstream Pakistani English newspapers, Dawn, The News, and The Nation, exploited the semiotic and discursive dimension of discourse, to produce a particular communicative effect on audience. Following a qualitative descriptive approach, this study anchored around the principle of Critical Discourse Analysis that discourse has a semiotic dimension which works in collaboration with the verbal dimension to perform a communicative function in a society. The cartoons were selected from the online sources of the newspapers to find out how the event was represented in them, what ideological meanings were conveyed through these visual devices, and how they played their role to enact, maintain, or resist social injustice. The findings of the research rendered that the English print media remained divided in its cartoon analysis of the issue. The News extended its favor to the government and ridiculed the goal, agenda, and leadership of the opposition parties; Dawn portrayed a humorous picture of the events; and The Nation emerged most satirical and coarse in its criticism of both sides: the government and the opposition.
Abdul Rafay Khan, Azizullah Khan. (2018) POLITICS OF CARICATURES: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF CARTOON COVERAGE OF 2014 ISLAMABAD SIT-INS, Journal of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Research, Volume 7, Issue 2.
-
Views
668 -
Downloads
165
Article Details
Volume
Issue
Type
Language
