Victims or villains? How editorial cartoons depict the 2023 Israel – Palestine war

Abstract

The study analyzed online editorial cartoons depicting the Israel-Palestine conflict through visual, symbolic, metaphorical, and textual analysis. The study reveals a prevailing anti-war sentiment across editorial cartoons, with a notable inclination towards supporting Palestine. This support was prominent in cartoons originating from the Global South, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. However, there was a scarcity of such cartoons within mainstream Western media.

Keywords

• editorial cartoons
• 2023 israeli-palestinian war
• multimodal discourse analysis
• multimodal semiotics