THE INFLUENCE OF EDITORIAL CARTOONS ON THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, USING 2015 AS A STUDY
- Project Research
- 1-5 Chapters
- Qualitative
- Content
- Abstract : Available
- Table of Content: Available
- Reference Style: APA
- Recommended for : Student Researchers
- NGN 3000
Background of the study
Media is undeniably a powerful and quick mode of communication. It has a tremendous impact on education, politics, culture, and social cohesion, in addition to appealing to a huge audience. The media serves as active watchdogs, pointing out the shortcomings of the political system. It examines the system, identifies the flaw, and attempts to remedy it through creative writing, drawing, and presenting, with cartooning and photography serving as one example of creative presentation.
A cartoon, according to Ogbo and Nuhu (2016), is a drawing and a symbol that conveys a sarcastic, witty, or hilarious message. Most cartoonists represent society either by ridiculing or criticizing them, hence it is mostly utilized by cartoonists to insult or mistreat individuals, organizations, or even institutions. "Comic strip characters that depict visible people in a society," says Steuter (2014). He went on to say that cartoons are messages intended to make people laugh, messages that are amusing in nature. Importantly, cartoonists employ symbols, caricatures, stereotypes, and parallels to convey their point. This is frequently featured on the editorial page of newspapers and periodicals, indicating the publication's philosophy and stance. However, during elections, political cartoons, also known as editorial cartoons, are used to communicate thoughts concerning the socio-political landscape. An editorial cartoon is a type of illustration that conveys social or political themes to its audience. An editorial cartoon, according to Jimoh (2011), is a drawing, comic strip, or single panel that has a current political or social message that shows a politician, a current event, or a scenario in a hilarious and exaggerated manner. As a result, satirical cartoons are an excellent way for cartoonists to communicate their views and opinions regarding political problems, events, or individuals. According to Sani, Abdullah, and Abdullah (2012), one of the purposes of editorial cartoons is to raise public awareness about socio-political concerns by using humor. This is frequently accomplished by employing metaphorical tones and imagery to characterize and criticize political leaders and their actions that are seen despicable in the political realm.
Importantly, competition and power struggle is unavoidable in an open society with various political parties if the strength of its democratic institutions is to be maintained. Most political parties aim to outsmart or outclass one another by adopting a variety of techniques to win voters' hearts and portray their party representatives in a favourable way. According to Atmor and Friedberg (2015), politicians and political actors feel that obtaining people's support is a serious business that requires a high level of skill and deftness even as they device mechanism to emerge into power. The case was no different during Nigeria's 2015 presidential elections where strategies for obtaining public support were on full show. The two major parties (APC and PDP) used their financial clout and popular backing to dethrone minor parties in these elections. Prior to the election, the majority of Nigerians yearned for change and a new administration. High anticipation, misinformation, and anxiety over Nigeria's continuing unity characterized the run-up to the election. Political assassinations were widespread at both the federal and state levels. These two political parties won nearly all of the country's elected posts thanks to their huge financial resources, which they cleverly exploited to persuade people to support their agendas through campaign and social mobilization.
It is well known fact that political parties' primary goal is to win elections, thus they launch political campaigns that include rallies, debates, interviews, and commercials. Onyekwelu & Akomolafe (2015) went on to say that, given the nature of such campaigns, language, with its nuanced semantic elements, rhetorical levels, and styles of presentation, plays a critical role in the success or failure of a party's message. The ideological ideas of a political party are typically communicated to voters using language and non-linguistic resources. More importantly, because of their linguistic and non-linguistic qualities, editorial cartoons have shown to be critical tools in a party's political success. According to Onakpa (2014), editorial cartoons take up little space yet transmits wealth of information in a single image, which would ordinarily need a lot of textual explanation. By offering a representation of socio-political events, cartoons explain and assist people comprehend them. Howbeit, several online cartoons which focus on creating awareness and influencing public opinion during the presidential campaign were used to satisfy the purpose of this research.
1.2 Statement of the problem
In contemporary society, editorial cartoons have a long history of combining social satire with political criticism. It has been the most direct means for criticizing government maladministration in various instances. Since Nigerians have a bad reading habit, even when looking for information in newspapers, they prefer to skim the headlines and, even better, the article leads (Aina, Ogungbeni, Adigun and Ogundipe, 2011). People with a weak reading culture, according to Patrick & Samuel (2018), are content if there is any way to get the information they want without having to read long pieces, even if they are wonderfully written. For them, cartoons have replaced the literary content of newspapers as a viable option. Saliently, during the 2015 presidential election campaign, editorial cartoons served as a powerful social mobilization agent, providing them with sufficient reasons to participate in the electoral process while also allowing them to obtain as much information about the candidates as they required through this unique channel of communication. In the run-up to the 2003 general elections, scholars like Ekpenyong and Bisong (2012) looked at the language of Nigerian political cartoons taken from tabloids. Tsakona (2009) investigated the interplay of language and picture in cartoons, focusing on the use of verbal and non-verbal linguistic elements such as contradiction, exaggeration, and metaphor. Despite the fact that there have been several studies on political cartoons, little emphasis has been paid to the study of the linguistic aspects and ideologies in Nigerian campaign cartoons, which contributed in social mobilization and public awareness during the 2015 presidential elections. As a result, using 2015 as a case study, this study aims to investigate the impact of images and editorial cartoons on the presidential election.
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