Politics of visual discourse in China: the corruption cartoon

Abstract

This article investigates single-panel cartoons portraying official corruption in China’s longest- running state-owned cartoon newspaper Cartoon Weekly ( Fengci yu youmo). A total of 433 cartoons are identified as relating to corrupt officialdom between 2012 and 2019 in the wake of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption signature policy. In contrast with the individualizing critique of political cartooning in liberal democracies, the corpus of corruption cartoons investigated in this article is argued as a didactic form of visual schematization in a pseudo-self-critical discourse typically buttressed by verbal reading instructions. To support this claim, the article addresses its politics of visual discourse by employing Peircean hypoiconicity, consisting of direct resemblance, diagrammatic schematization and metaphoric displacement. Accordingly, the article identifies three major features of corruption cartoons as anonymization of direct resemblance, visual schematization of policy and metaphoric displacement of conventional symbols.

On thresholds: signs, symbols and significance

“…28–29) at which the theory of semiotics becomes a matter of practice (in Eco's words “specific semiotics”) applied to particular fields. Some examples of semiotics in practice include law (Lloyd, 2020), marketing (Barnham, 2019), medicine (Brizio et al ., 2022), politics (Chu, 2021), and religion (Leone, 2019b).…”

Образ “Врага” И Нейтралитет В Китайских Карикатурах

“…В нашем материале такие типичные приемы, как зооморфизмы или внешнее сходство героев карикатуры с реальными людьми (один случай из выборки), не применялись, а вместо этого использовалась символика (национальные флаги, флаги объединений или подписи). Результаты моего исследования схожи с выводами, к которым пришел в своей работе Ю. Чу, изучая карикатуры, посвященные коррупции: китайские авторы избегают прямого сходства мишени карикатуры с конкретными личностями [Chu 2021].…”

“…В 1988 г. коммунистическая партия Китая взяла курс на подавление голосов оппозиции, а жанр карикатуры был сведен к инструменту коммунистической пропаганды [Chu 2021]. Исследователи отмечают, что на когнитивном уровне для китайских карикатур типично осуждение чужой группы при противопоставлении "мы -они" [Zhang 2021].…”

Celebrating 20 Years of Visual Communication

“…In this regard, we see much scholarship reflecting the need for greater diversity of disciplines and approaches, of topics and themes, and of visual and multimodal representations of factors such as ability, gender, and ethnicity (see for example, Caple and Tian, 2022; Zhongxuan and Lin, 2021). We see great potential for visual communication scholarship to impact positively on contexts and fields such as politics (Chu 2021; Varvantakis & Nolas 2021), healthcare , both mental and physical (as with Bennett, this issue; Forceville & Paling 2018; Mondada, this issue; Robson, 2022), and our understanding of critical social crises , such as the experience of refugees (Catalani 2019; De La Presa and Ruiz, 2021), environmental disaster (Björkvall and Archer, 2021; Kwesell, 2021) and of course, the pandemic (Luvaas, this issue; Selamet, this issue; Yu and Yan, 2021). We continue to seek examples of the best and most recent innovations in visual design, be it at the national scale of grand institutions and exhibitions (Jones, 2020), or individual experimentation with expression (Cooper 2022; Raappano-Luiro, 2020).…”