Towards a Discipline of Political Cartoon Studies: Mapping the Field

Abstract

Although easily absorbed initially, political cartoons possess a complexity of method and context that affects attempts to study them. The disciplinary home of this scholarship is not clearly defined: is it media studies, cultural studies, humour studies, politics or fine arts? Since the field crosses all these disciplinary boundaries, it is reviewed and mapped to provide a guide to scholars researching political cartoons. Published research across a corpus of over 100 studies relating to political cartoons is surveyed. Topic areas include editorial cartoons, caricatures, strip and pocket cartoons and other images satirically commenting on politics. The large, representative base allows the identification of various subfields and common assumptions among the studies and approaches, taking an important step towards unifying the field of political cartooning research. The six major subfields are: meta-studies or surveys of political cartoons, the properties of political cartoons, their function as cultural mirrors, political cartoons’ impact, audience reception, and the cartoon ecosystem. The chapter’s focus is static images in print news media—editorial cartoons, caricatures, strip and pocket cartoons—used to make comment (usually humorous but also critical) on newsworthy events and figures. Work on political cartoons is distinguished from contiguous work on both non-political cartoon books and animations and political satire in prose and/or TV and digital media.