The Art of Criticism: How African Cartoons Discursively Constructed African Media Realities in the Post-Cold War Era

Abstract

African newspaper cartoons are critical journalistic texts that are among the most visiblemanifestations of post-Cold War African political liberalisation. Since the early 1990s,cartoons have spearheaded the struggle for freedom of expression on the continent. Onetechnique African cartoons have used to excoriate authoritarianism is to focus on politicalpersecution of the media. This article is concerned with African cartoon narratives of therealities of the African media in the post-Cold War era. An analysis of a purposivesample of cartoons from countries where there have been major confrontations betweengovernments and the media revealed that African political cartoons are irreverentcounter-discourses that use African mythic idioms to portray a sombre picture of mediarealities on the African continent. The study also demonstrates that African politicalcartoonists resist abuses of power through deterritorialization and animalisation ofauthoritarian leaders who suppress freedom of expression. Finally, the article will analysethe impact of the Mohammad cartoons 'affair', which ignited a global controversy thatimpacted the African media and also reminded African cartoonists that cartooning is acraft fraught with danger.