Visualizing Pandemic Issues: A Semiotic Study of Contemporary Arab Media Cartoons on COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 is one of the vilest plagues that has altered the course of human history despondently. The world has confronted many issues that needed to be scrutinized in order to deliver an enhanced resolution. The present study focuses on the ways Arab media (newspapers) has presented the pandemic issues in the form of cartoons. These issues provide a gist to what the world needs to focus on during such gloomy times. The study uses a semiotic theory lens to analyze the selected cartoons from the two popular Middle Eastern newspapers. An insight into the newspaper's cartoons reveals that the corona pandemic has gravely affected the world from many perspectives. The major issues exposed are the regular interruption of normal human-life activities, the nippy collapse of the world economies, the glum miseries of the working class, the duple downfall of the terror-struck countries, the unfair hold of the COVID-19 vaccine, the capitalistic issues with vaccine supply, and the deplorable botch of the world advancement. The findings reveal how caricatures become a social discourse when a cartoonist focuses on social and political realities around him.