Politics and Political Cartoons : Content Analysis in 156 Diet Coverage

Abstract

This paper attempts to review what political cartoons are and how they have been read and to demonstrate how they should be read in the 156 Diet coverage. Newspaper cartoons (including political cartoons) have been suffered from problems of their newspapers. Cartoons ara more necessary to be recognized and examined among newspaper texts. On cartoon satire, newspaper cartoons are considered less effective to mass public than to some people. In political cartoon research, Symbolic Convergence Theory(S.C.T.), Membership Categorization Device(M.C.D.) and Social Construction of Reality in Mass Media(S.C.R) make a new look at political cartoons in terms of rhetoric and social constructionism. On their approaches it is examined how political cartoons represent in the 156 Diet. Among issues in the Diet was the contingency-related bills. The bills,on consensus and legislation, were symbolized by political cartoons in Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri for the political trade between L.D.P (Liberal Democratic Party) and D.P.J (Democratic Party of Japan). The themes of cartoons were overlapped with their newpaper coverages.