Abstract:
The art of cartooning has been around for decades, and it has received a lot of attention
from researchers due to the fact that cartoons can encode messages that people might
find hard to convey directly. More often than not, confusion and ambiguity may arise
in the interpretation of cartoons as it is assumed that the audience has prior knowledge
of what the cartoons are meant to convey. Ordinarily, political cartoons are humorous,
rhetorical, and satirical. They playfully communicate controversial issues. As such, this
study investigated satire in political cartoons that were published on the internet by a
Kenyan cartoonist Godfrey Mwampembwa popularly known as Gado in the year 2017.
The main objective of the study was to identify and examine satirical themes in Gado’s
political cartoons and the satirical strategies employed in conveying the said themes in
the political cartoons that were selected. This research was guided by the Semiotics
theory as espoused by Ferdinand De Saussure, Roland Barthes, and later reviewed by
Wamitila. The researcher used the Semiotics theory as espoused by Wamitila to collect
and analyze data for this research. The study employed a descriptive research design,
where the researcher purposively selected twenty political cartoons from a corpus of
sixty political cartoon that were published in the year 2017 by Gado. During the
sampling of the twenty political cartoons, the researcher took into consideration those
that were in line with the objectives of the study. The research was carried out on the
internet, where the researcher downloaded and printed out selected cartoons from
www.gadocartoons.com. The data from the sampled political cartoons was recorded,
translated, coded, analyzed and presented with respect to the two main objectives of the
research, the theory, and the scope of the study. The research findings showed that the
themes portrayed in Gado’s political cartoons were satirical in nature as they brought
to light the ills that ailed the government that was in power in the year 2017. In addition
to that, the researcher found out that Gado used stylistic devices such as; sarcasm, irony,
metaphors, metonyms, analogy, and intertexuality as strategies for bringing out satire.
Furthermore, the research findings showed that Gado used visual signs such as; use of
different colors, symbols such as asterisks, and hashtags, use of titles and speech
bubbles as satirical strategies, meant to attack specific targets with the aim of causing
change in behavior. Finally, the research found out that there was more freedom and
bluntness in portraying issues in political cartoons that were published on the internet.
It is from this new found freedom and bluntness, that cartoonists such as Gado are able
to realise the role of satire; which is to attack specific targets with the aim of causing
change. In conclusion, the findings of this research were envisaged to be beneficial to
communication students, semioticians, and researchers in the field of politics, where
the findings would bring in a new perspective in the use of texts and signs in encoding
messages that are published on the internet where there is no censorship and hence more
freedom of expression and more so on issues that are deemed controversial.
