Cartoon Discourse in the Libyan Electronic Press

Abstract

This study is derived from a master's thesis and aimed to primarily aimed to analyze the discourse of cartoon art in Libyan electronic newspapers, examining the dimensions of interactivity, levels of semiotic reading, and methods of visual rhetoric in cartoons. The study employed both the semiotic approach and the descriptive method on a sample of Libyan electronic newspapers published in 2020-2021, in addition to surveying the professional practices of communicators in the sample represented by the newspaper "Bawabat al-Wasat." It utilized content analysis forms, semiotic analysis cards, and in-depth interviews as data collection tools. The study reached several significant findings, the most prominent being the dominance of local topics in the discourse of cartoons in Libyan electronic journalism. The semiotic analysis of the studied cartoons revealed that the meanings of the components of the artistic message, which included (framing, shapes and lines, colors and their connotations), were linked to the core ideas of the topics addressed in the cartoon discourse in Libyan electronic journalism. Meanwhile, the iconic message represented by the duality of (signifier and signified) simulated the political and social reality in Libya at the time of the study. Additionally, there was a greater openness to addressing global issues and problems in the discourse of cartoons in Libyan electronic journalism.