HUMANITY UNFRAMED: A SOCIO-SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL CARTOON ON ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT

Abstract

Israel-Palestine conflict is embedded with multifaceted layers of historical, political, and socio-economic complexities which has led to widespread violence, displacement, and human rights violation. This study conducts a socio-semiotic analysis of a political cartoon published in The Guardian UK newspaper, during The October 7 War, 2023. The aim is to explore how the cartoon portrays the humanitarian crisis in Palestine. Visual and textual elements both within the selected cartoon are scrutinized using Kress and Van Leeuwan’s Visual Grammar framework to effectively convey its meaning. This study intents to evoke empathy, critique, and solidarity for the civilians impacted by the crisis, through an in-depth investigation of representational, interactive, compositional and contextual meaning of the cartoon, including modality, perspective and framing techniques used by the cartoonist. The results show that the political cartoons serve as a powerful source of visual communication, condensing intricate political and social matters into concise, frequently satirical, and visually captivating depictions. By unravelling the semiotic resources embedded in the cartoon, this study deepens our understanding of how visual communication influences discourse surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict and its humanitarian aspect.