Discursive Strategies of a Political Cartoon Video
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DOI: 10.25236/iche.2022.010
Author(s)
Xiqin Liu, Guangxue Dai, Shuozi Wu, Wenwen Zheng, Ying Qu
Corresponding Author
Xiqin Liu
Abstract
This article makes a multimodal critical discourse analysis of a cartoon video How Leaders are Made as a new Chinese political discourse in social media. The video clips about Chinese and Western presidential election systems were compared to identify variations in discursive strategy use. The effectiveness of the cartoon can be explained by identifying it as a blended mental space incorporating elements of the textual, musical and visual worlds. Two strategies for positive self-representation are identified: imbalanced comparison, and rhetoric-based recontextualization. The video discourse fulfils implicit and rational self-representation as an upgrade of the communist discursive tradition.
Keywords
Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, Political Cartoon Video, Positive Self, Recontextualization