Paper Example on Power and Language: Political Cartoons

Introduction

The main objective of this article is the analysis of two political players, George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden, through the use of visual rhetoric cartoons in both Arabic and English. The article discusses the influence of politics on the war on terror by reviewing political cartoons where Bush is signified in Arabic and Osama in English. In the article, several investigative approaches are made: semiotics, political cartoon analysis and discussion and a critical discourse analysis of both semiotics and the political cartoons. The aim of this paper is to highlight the various literature reviews, methodologies and critical problems reported by the article. In this regard, the critical discourse analysis (CDA) is the main methodology employed in the article as it a research approach that easily traces social abuse of power, inequality and dominance in the political and social context (Weiss 2007). It also reveals the importance of communicative interaction through linguistic and semiotic features and their role in society, both socially and politically.

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Definitions

Political cartoon - a satirical comment which brings out a political event, idea or person in a humorous manner but reflects its own opinions or values about the issue at hand (Sani 156).

Sign - anything with meaning in a given coded context.

The choice of semiotics is based on the criticism for the US administration and Israeli practices and policies on the war on terror with the texts selected from a variety of print and electronic sources. A cartoon corpus is used comprising three groups; one led by main signifier Bush and with 16 cartoons, another with 14 cartoons led by bin Laden as the main signifier and the last with six cartoons, which combine both Bush and bin Laden. The choice of the characters exemplifies the reality of the never-ending political narrative where there must be a leading 'warrior' and a number one 'terrorist'. In this case, Bush is the 'warrior' and bin Laden is the 'terrorist'. Through sampling, several cartoons are chosen from either divide; Bush or bin Laden based on the themes of leadership, religion and war. For example, in one of the sampled cartoon, Bush is depicted in Arabic as the Owner and manager of the earth and the entire world; which reflects the perception that he is the president of the leading country in the world (Mazid 434). Consequently, he is not depicted as a religious person as brought out in the verbal fusion in "Uncle Sam" where he is poisonous, and a symbol of deception and evil. Similarly, in Laden cartoons are chosen according to his hobbies of beheading and bombing, the incident of 9-11 depicted as one of his proudest moments.

One of the features that are common to all political cartooning programs is intertextuality which is a measure of condensation, fusion and blending texts to others. Being a connotation of either verbal or non-verbal play of signs, intersexuality takes different forms either thematic similarity, parody, plagiarism or borrowing (Greenberg 183). The power of connotation is the unique combination of objective (direct meaning, literal) and subjective ideologies (cultural, emotional) of words/texts.

Prior to the research of this article, several researchers had been done on the use of semiotics to review politics. Several of them explored the relationship between political cartoon satire and the political realities they were based on. The findings of the various researches done (Medhurst 197) reveal that the target of most political cartooning programs is the public democratic segment and their role play in decision making in any contemporary state (Mazid 436). Additionally, the other review is the mechanisms used to produce the satirical political cartoons and the critical effect on distortion and exaggeration. By highlighting the 1988 US elections, this article agrees to the fact that political cartooning uses humor and exaggeration as a 'stock-in-trade' for the cartoonists. Consequently, misrepresentation gives way for untruth and the line between the political popular culture, fiction and the news becomes blurry (Mazid 437). The literature review discussed in this article indicates that political cartoons are critical in communicating complex yet subtle messages which are multi-layered in the political scene of the contemporary state. Extreme views either politically incorrect or mean-spirited are able to rich a wider audience.

As a communication tool, the incongruence of political cartoons to the reality is a critical discussion point. It is important to highlight the expressions, attitudes and behaviors that such political cartoons impact on different ages, races, religious backgrounds and ethnicities. For example, most of the bin Laden cartoons highlight his ecstasy towards misery, death and violence against targeted non-Muslim groups. It is unsurprisingly coherent with what the Western media already depicts his stature; as a brutal and bloody leader. Similarly, Bush is also considered unreligious and as a war catalyst in the Middle East and among many Muslim communities (Mazid 452). Ironically, reality does not allow the two leaders to be as holy as they boast of, and neither are they as evil as depicted in the media and other political cartoons. In the context of the 9/11 attacks, the political cartoons have a positive impact in altering the existing de-legitimation and misrepresentation of war between the West and the East.

In this regard, political cartooning as a linguistic tool has been true to its genre where humor is desirably achieved through fusion, blending and incongruity; and at the same time critique the cause of actions by the cartoonists (Mazid 452). In such semi-linguistic approach, the coordination of the verbal and visual significantly affects the mannerism of encoding and decoding the message. The article does not represent the final account on the political cartoons but rather analyses their significance to the misrepresentation on the war on terror and the war on the war on terror discourse.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the critical issue of misrepresentation sums up the subject of power and language in this article. Most of the political cartoons published or aired depict the fight between Bush and bin Laden, as the clash of the two civilizations; the west against the Middle East (Mazid 451). The use of linguistics and semiotics in highlighting political eras is well articulated as a means to further misrepresentation and incongruity on the war on terror. In the article the irony escalates in the wake of the 9/11 attacks both Bush and bin Laden are ridiculed by cartoonists from their region; both leaders are not as evil as depicted and are neither as holy fighters as they convince themselves. Consequently, the political cartooning portrayed by this article is a mirror of the political realities; America's war on terror and Al Qaeda's extremism in retaliation.

Works Cited

Greenberg, Josh. "Framing and temporality in political cartoons: A critical analysis of visual news discourse." Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie 39.2 (2002): 181-198.

Mazid, Bahaa-Eddin M. "Cowboy and misanthrope: a critical (discourse) analysis of Bush and bin Laden cartoons." Discourse & Communication 2.4 (2008): 433-457.

Medhurst, Martin J., and Michael A. Desousa. "Political cartoons as rhetorical form: A taxonomy of graphic discourse." Communications Monographs 48.3 (1981): 197-236.

Sani, Iro, et al. "Political cartoons as a vehicle of setting social agenda: The newspaper example." Asian Social Science 8.6 (2012): 156.

Weiss, Gilbert, and Ruth Wodak, eds. Critical discourse analysis. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.