Political Cartoons in Foreign Media

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Julia V. Balakina

PhD in Philology, Associate Professor, Department of Literature and Cross-Cultural Communication, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

e-mail: julianaumova@gmail.com

Section: Modern Journalism: Subjects and Issues

The timeliness of the present theoretical study is determined by the growing popularity of various forms of visual content in modern media, where traditional multimodal texts compete with emerging new forms. Thus, the article aims at revealing the uniqueness and undying relevance of political cartoons as a traditional genre of media communication. To achieve the aforementioned goal, a comparative analysis of cartoons and memes was conducted, a list of socially important events triggered by cartoons was presented, and a review of foreign research on this subject was made. Taking into account the results achieved, the author concludes that despite a wide variety of visualization means, cartoons as a genre fill their own niche in the media as a complex mechanism of satire production, possessing political potential. Therefore, there seem to be no obstacles on the way to further development of this genre on the Internet.

Keywords: political cartoon, meme, visualization, mobilization, cartoon scandal
DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.6.2021.95115

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