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The Influence Of Political Cartoons

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Political Cartoons Another type of political comedy that is often undervalued today is political cartoons. Prior to the television becoming a mainstream medium, political cartoons constituted the majority of political comedy. This power stemmed from the fact that political cartoons were often presented in print media, such as newspapers and magazines. As print media has fallen out of demand, however, political cartoons ceded their position to late-night comedy shows. This is not to suggest that political cartoons cannot exist in a TV-dominated society; rather, that a bit of its availability and power has been transferred to other media. Political cartoons still exist and have potential to alter viewers’ perception of the current political climate. In fact, some argue that the political cartoon has experienced a resurgence due to social media. One study phrased it like this: “Shared on social media, these cartoons created an impression of “déjà vu”, showing us the same metaphors again and again in a very limited space of time” (Bouko, Calabrese, & De Clercq, 2017). Not only do editorial cartoons still exist, their power has been augmented by the structure and nature of social media. Internet memes also constitute a section of this and will be discussed in-depth later. While political cartoons have been replaced by satirical television in the West, many places are still heavily influenced by them. For example, one recent study looked at the effect that political cartoons had

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