THE 2013-14 THAI POLITICAL CRISIS AS REFLECTED IN THAI POLITICAL CARTOONS

Authors

Keywords:

cartoon, newspaper, political crisis, semiotics, Thailand

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate 84 political cartoons published during the 2013-14 Thai political crisis from four newspapers: Bangkok Post, The Nation, Thai Rath, and Daily News, by using semiotics, theories of cartoons, theories of humor, and critical discourse analysis. According to the data, it was found that in multi-panel cartoons, the cartoonists create humor by using incongruity and flouting maxims of Cooperative Principle. Secondly, the differences between Thai and English language newspapers include 1) most of the cartoons in the Thai language newspapers are in multi panels while most of the cartoons in the English language newspapers are in one panel, 2) most of the cartoons in the Thai language newspapers contain humor but all of the cartoons in the English language newspapers contain no humor, 3) most of the signifiers in the cartoons are related to the anti-government side, and 4) most of the cartoons in the Thai language newspapers emphasized negative things of the anti-government side but nearly all of the cartoons in the English language newspapers emphasize negative things of the pro-government side. Finally, the cartoons show strong political partisanship of the cartoonists that may create hatred and social fragmentation among people in the country.

Author Biography

Aram Iamlaor, National Institute of Development Administration

Aram Iamlaor is a PhD student of the Graduate School of Language and Communication, National Institute of Development Administration in Bangkok. Now he is a part-time lecturer at Language Institute, Burapha University. Prior to being a PhD student, he was a lecturer of English Department, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Huachiew Chalermprakiet University. He has experience in studying in the field of language and communication, especially translation studies and semiotics, so he is interested in doing research on translation techniques and visual mode of communication.

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Published

2021-12-30

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 2 (2021): July - December

Section

Research Articles

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