Political Cartoon As A Means Of Vindication: A Semiotic Analysis Of Cartooning For Peace’ S Editorial Cartoon On The 2023/2025 Gaza War
Keywords:
Cartooning for peace, Gaza war, Political cartoon, Semiotics, VindicationAbstract
In the contemporary geopolitical context, the war in Gaza has sparked heated debate on the international stage, positioning itself as one of the most controversial events in global politics today. In the contemporary world, a significant number of artists specialising in humorous and satirical representation, commonly known as cartoonists, have recently used their talent to denounce the military actions carried out by Israel in the Gaza Strip, highlighting the disastrous humanitarian consequences of this conflict. As part of this study, a semiotic analysis of the illustrations produced by ‘Cartooning for Peace’ artists was conducted. This analysis focused on the key semiotic strategies and visual metaphors used by the artists in their works to depict the political controversy surrounding the war in Gaza. As part of this study, a qualitative content analysis was conducted as a research method. Semiotic theory is used as a theoretical framework for this study. Moreover, the meanings generated by political cartoons during the Israeli-Palestine conflict are analysed using Barthes’s model. The data for the semiotic analysis was taken from Cartooning for peace association web site. A total of 5 political cartoons are deeply analysed through the literal, denoted, and connoted meanings they show. The findings demonstrate the potential of cartoon to function as a medium for political resistance and vindication, effectively transforming conventional symbols into instruments of struggle and collective memory. This study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the emotive power of cartoon in disseminating messages of resistance, and it opens doors for future research on drawing activism in times of conflict.
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