Educational Messages in Cartoons and Caricatures by Malaysian Cartoonists

Abstract

Cartoonists utilise dialogue, metaphors, and visual elements to effectively convey a message that connects with the intended audience. This study aims to understand the messages and to investigate the visual elements presented by Malaysian cartoonists in their cartoon and caricature artworks. Cartoons and caricature artwork have been selected from four Malaysian cartoonists namely Datuk Lat, Kazim, Maro, and Keith. The qualitative method was carried out and content analysis was employed to obtain data from secondary data by implementing the Art Criticism approach and Semiotic theory. Based on the findings, two theme categories are found in the selected artworks: education and general. Sub-themes of the education themes category consist of messages about co-curricular education and education issues while sub-themes of the general themes category consist of messages about local culture, current issues, and lifestyle, portrayed by the cartoonists in their artworks. The findings also revealed that in general, all elements of art (such as line, shape, form, value, colour, texture, and space) and the principles of design (such as emphasis, contrast, balance, movement, and proximity) appeared in the artworks selected for the analysis. However, not all elements of art or principles of design are necessarily presented simultaneously in every cartoon or caricature artwork. Hopefully, this study can contribute to applying Art Criticism towards artworks, particularly cartoons, and caricatures.