Dissecting Sociopolitical Paradigms: A Social Semiotic Scrutiny of Pakistani Political Caricatures within a Curated Corpus of English Newspaper Editorial Content

Abstract

This study investigates the socio-semiotic evaluation of political illustrations which portray political and social themes within the editorials of Pakistani English newspapers. Political cartoons have ability to say about crucial facts that could be much difficult to say in words due to some political pressure. A political cartoon is a cartoon that makes a point about a political issue or event. In order to evaluate the significance of cartooning in mass media and the relationship between cartoons and politics in the perspective of the Press. The following are the main steps in a hypothesis. To determine the cartooning style employed by the Pakistani Press. To identify the tools used by a cartoonist which make the caricatures attractive. To study about the signs and symbols in political cartoons to know about most highlighted issues by caricatures. To understand the use of colors in cartoons. To know about the characters, a cartoonist used to portray. Three newspapers were selected for this research due their higher circulation in Pakistan. The newspapers were, The Dawn, The Nation and Daily Times. All the selected cartoons were analyzed quantitatively. This research will help to find out that how a cartoonist uses color technique? Which is the most highlighted issue and how a cartoonist use different tools to portray his specific character? This study employs qualitative methods to analyses political visual discourse. In the examination of cartoons, several methodologies and theoretical structures can be used. Linguistic, pragmatic, semantic, psycho-linguistic, and semiotic techniques are among them. This research takes a semiotic approach. Semiotics is defined as "a philosophical approach that strives to interpret communication in terms of their signs and symbolism patterns."(Eco, 1986). Researcher has used Barthes approach in this study.