Direct Method and Indirectness Method: Communication Strategy in Cartoon

Abstract

Cartoons are not only seen as a media channel to provide entertainment to the community. This is because cartoons play an important role as a very effective medium of information delivery to all groups. The message in the cartoon is conveyed either through the language use and illustrations or mere illustrations from a cartoonist. The display of illustrations with the language used in cartoons in the press indirectly brings current issues in various aspects. Even though these illustrations can help stimulate one's ideas and maturity in evaluating a message. The purpose of this study is to examine language use as a communication strategy in cartoons and describe the use of direct and indirect methods in cartoons. As such, the use of language as a communication strategy is examined based on the language use used in cartoons, namely the language use through direct methods and indirectness methods. The study was conducted qualitatively through a descriptive approach. Study data were taken and collected from cartoons or illustrations produced by Maro cartoonists in the Malaysia Kita column, Mingguan Malaysia. The illustration taken as study data is an illustration that gives an overview of the current situation of the country in Mingguan Malaysia every Sunday for the July and August issues in 2019 and August 2020. Data analysis is done through an approach that presented by Asmah Hj Omar through research on the language use through indirectness methods and the language use through direct methods. The results of this study can be observed that the cartoon in the newspaper clearly shows that there is an emphasis on these two methods as a communication strategy used through language use as a way to ensure that the message conveyed can be understood by all parties. Thus, language use through this indirectness method is the main choice in the delivery of storytelling through cartoons. The study of language on cartoon illustrations needs to be given a wider focus because there are still many vacancies that need to be examined.