Semiotic Analysis of Editorial Cartoons of Satish Acharya


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Creator/Artist: Vineet Srivastava

Category: Visual Communication

Document: Design Research

Source: India,   IDC IIT Bombay

Period:  2019-onwards

Medium: Report pdf

Supervisor: Prof. Nina Sabnani


Detailed Description

This study uses tools from semiotics to study the work of Indian cartoonist Satish Acharya. It includes a brief study of the history of editorial cartoons, a study of basic concepts of semiotics, and existing work that has been done to apply these concepts to conduct a formal analysis of political cartoons. This study analyses a selection of Acharya's work from 2020 to identify the elements of the visual language he uses to construct his cartoons and to study the explicit and implicit messages they contain. We find that Acharya uses consistent visual techniques to amplify or ambiguate his critique as needed and places himself squarely with the people, against the political class.