Political Cartoons as Burkean Frames of Acceptance

The Comic Framing of Ramaphosa’s Revolution

Bibliographic Data

ID21747724
AuthorsAnneli Bowie (0000-0001-6409-3734, School of Visual Arts, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume30
Issue2
Pages75-89
Publication date2023-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueVisual Communication Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1555-1393 • E-ISSN: 1555-1407
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/15551393.2023.2196630
OpenAlexW4362607623
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

While political cartoons have been read as criticism in Kenneth Burke’s burlesque rejection frame, this paper presents an alternative reading, to consider their potential for expressing attitudes of acceptance via comic framing. A Burkean vocabulary for studying cartoons is provided, including the mechanism of perspective by incongruity, the attitudinal alignments of acceptance and rejection, the genres of comic framing and burlesque, as well as the phenomenon of bureaucratization of the imaginative. South African cartoons featuring president Ramaphosa are then analyzed to illustrate how cartoons can potentially offer more nuanced political critiques when expressing comic discounting rather than burlesque debunking. The paper is concluded by reflecting on the civic potential of comic framing, as a constructive alternative to polemical cartooning

Aesthetics · Art · Burlesque · Comics · Criticism · Literature · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · History · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · South African History and Culture

Tools

Open DOI