IDEOLOGICAL AND STEREOTYPICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE POLITICAL ELITES: A STUDY OF THE EDITORIAL CARTOONS IN THE NATION

Abstract

The present paper attempts to explore and analyze the discursive and semiotic strategies used by the editors and cartoonists to ideologically and stereotypically represent the Pakistani political elites and thereby shaping and constructing the readers’ ideologies and world views. A multimodal discourse study is conducted for the analysis of the editorial cartoons purposively selected from a Pakistani English newspaper The Nation. The multimodal discourse analysis of the editorial cartoons reveals that the editors and cartoonists favour one group of the political elites (ingroup) over the other (out-group). In the modern world of science and technology, electronic and print media as sources are used to communicate, negotiate and exchange news and information with the audience and readers, using verbal and visual signs (pictures/images). Editorial cartoons as media discourses are one of the sources for spreading and sharing the news and information related to satire, irony and criticism. The findings indicate that the editors and cartoonists, being political, perspectival and ideological, attribute good qualities to the in-group political elites and represent them as honest and truthful. Moreover, they associate bad qualities to the out-group political elites and stereotype them as dishonest and untruthful.