Cartoons of Corruption in the Nigerian Newsprints and the Dynamics of Semiotic Discourse

Abstract

Cartoons as elements of meaning significations have, doubtless, become a globally accepted route of scholarly perception in the print media. Extant studies in Nigerian Newspaper cartoons have examined various issues of socio-political concerns with stint consideration for the dynamics of semiotics in the representations of corruption in selected Nigerian newspaper cartoons, analysing the discursive elements that house corruption as the bane of the Nigerian economy. Kress and Leeuwen’s multimodal approach to social semiotics, rooted in Pierce’s theory of signs, is deployed as hermeneutic model for the corruption theme using descriptive research design. Six cartoons, two each from Daily Sun (DS), Daily Trust (DT) and The Punch (TP), were purposively selected for national spread, professional predispositions, and their relevance to nation-building processes. The data were subjected to Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA). Cartoon images, as meaning signification tools, manifested certain linguistic and non-linguistic resources in forms and structures that depict the Nigerian clime as corruption personified. With shrewd deployment of compound and complex clause structures, deliberate deployment of colour palette for emotional and symbolic meanings, composition for layout, framing, and salience (prominence) of elements to reveal the cartoonist's emphasis and priorities. These were combined with series of non-linguistic forms such as irony, hyperbole and symbolism. The artistic intelligence of the cartoonists deployed in DT cartoon, TP cartoon, DS cartoons respectively unearth the damning level of media corruption in the polity in much the same way the army and the political class were affected. Both expressive and non-expressive language forms project ‘corruption identity’ for the main effort of nation- building purpose. Cartoon texts, within their expressive and impressive language forms, embodied in iconicity, symbolism, and indexicality, have demonstrated the themes of corruption in the Nigerian newspapers for pragmatic actions. They, contributing to knowledge in imagistic interpretations, media studies, language pedagogy, and applied English linguistics, therefore constitute covert call to stakeholders for meaningful nation-building process in the Nigerian polity.