Mushohwe et al. (2011) The Effect of Media Law on Selected Zimbabwean Editorial Cartoons During Zimbabwe's 2...

During the 2008 elections the Zimbabwean media laws had a direct impact on the way that editorial cartoonists expressed themselves. The study contextualises an understanding of the editorial cartoon as practised in an environment of freedom of speech and defined by the four categories identified by Press (1981) and Manning and Phiddian (2004), and delineates the effects of media law on the newspaper industry in Zimbabwe. We review four editorial cartoons reading the semiotic nonverbal communication and meaning principles as defined by Du Plooy (1996) according to the criteria: symbols/metaphors, exaggeration/distortion, stereotypes, caricature, irony, captions and background knowledge as developed by Fetsko (2001). A comparative analysis of the cartoons reveals that objectives and functions of the unmediated zimonline.co.za and mediated Herald newspapers are exactly the same. They are propagandistic representations of Zimbabwean politics that are more of an extension of political ideology than they are a reflection of the country's socio-political landscape.

@article{mushohwe2011effect,
author = {Mushohwe, Knowledge and Hattingh, Heidi S. and Economou, Inge},
journal = {SAJAH},
number = {1},
pages = {23--40},
title = {{The Effect of Media Law on Selected Zimbabwean Editorial Cartoons During Zimbabwe's 2008 Harmonised General Elections}},
volume = {26},
year = {2011}
}

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe media law, censorship, editorial cartoon, press freedom