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MULTIMODAL STUDY OF SELECTED CARTOONS IN NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS 

 

Prof.  Jane Ifechelobi 

Department of Eng Language and Literature 

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka 

Email: jn.ifechelobi@unizik.edu.ng 

& 

Chiamaka Rosemary Ilodinso 

Email: cilodinso@yahoo.com 

 

Abstract  

This study aimed to identify the different modes of communication and how they correlated or act 

independently in communication using Visual Semiotic Theory. Multimodality perceives 

communication to be more than verbal or written language. It propagates that communication has 

always involve diverse modes, like images, colour, layout; all which has its own meaning potentials. 

Using Visual Semiotic theory, the study analyzed the pragmatic implications of the components of 

visual so as to interpret and understand visuals as an aspect of mode. The analysis indeed showed that 

cartoon is a visual semiotic mode that would expand the readers’ interpretative repertoires and also 

strengthen their capacity in constructing and interpreting multimodal texts. 

Keywords: Multimodality, Mode, Visual Semiotics 

 

Introduction 

In as much as language is an indispensable tool used by human beings and forms part of our 

existence, it is just one of the many possible systems for producing meaning. There are diverse 

possible systems of producing meaning which can intertwine with language or act solely to enhance 

meaning. According to Gee, language is not the only important communication system in digital 

media; visual symbols and signs are as significant as written or spoken language. Words, images, 

colour, layout are mostly integrated in varieties of ways in web pages, newspapers and magazines, as 

well as in textbooks all to enhance meaning and proper interpretation.  

 

Invariably, communication is increasingly becoming multimodal, as it draws on wide range of 

semiotic resources for the projection of meaning. Halliday (4) supporting this opines that “…there are 

many other modes of meaning, in any culture, which are outside the realm of language and these 

modes can operate independently or interdependently in different levels in a multimodal text”. Gee 

stresses that each of these genres or semiotic modes has its own set of rules and requirements and can 

as well function as a meaning repertoire. The study hopes to explore the pragmatic implications and 

identify the visual cues of the components of visuals. 

 

Semiotic Mode 

A mode refers to a semiotic system or resource for expressing meaning that has a distinct method of 

representation. Mode as defined by Kress is:  

A socially shaped and culturally given semiotic resource for making meaning and it is …that 

which a community, a group of people who work in similar ways around similar issues, has 

decided to treat as a mode” (36).  

 

This means that modes take shape and acquire meaning over time within cultures and reflects 

culturally explicit and recognizable ideals of the society. He (39) explains that for something to be a 

mode, there need to be a shared cultural sense within a community of its usage and then how it can be 

organized to realize meaning. This is to say that the joining of alphabetic scripts can be recognized 

within socially specific groups (readers of English).  Primarily, modes take shape and acquire 

meaning over time within cultures. 

 

Kress also opines that, visual modes have taken on a culturally significant meaning, so that color, 

dress, font, size, layout, and bodily gesture, as well as auditory elements (music, sound, speech) have 

the ability to convey socially constructed or socially semiotic meanings, with each mode representing 

mailto:cilodinso@yahoo.com


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a similar socially constructed knowledge differently (39). Therefore, the use of different modes allows 

the producer of a text multiple choices for creating meaning and this choice of resources for meaning-

making is linked to the notion of modal affordance in other words the “meaning-making potential” 

or the “potentials and limitations” of certain semiotic resources or modes in a specific situation. 

 

Multimodal Discourse 

According to Van Leeuwen (28), multimodality is the combination of different semiotic modes, for 

example; language and music in a communicative artifact or event. Baldry and Thibault, refer it to the 

use of diverse ways in which a number of distinct semiotic resource systems are both co-deployed and 

co-contextualized in the making of a text-specific meaning. Multimodality discourse focuses mainly 

on the study of the interrelationships between various communicative modes, be it visual or auditory, 

words or image. 

 

Synder (24) defines multimodal discourse as the study of the intersection and interdependence of 

various modalities of communication within a given context’. O’Halloran et al (32) gave a more 

specific definition to it. They opine that “a multimodal discourse involves the interaction of multiple 

semiotic resources such as language, gesture, dress, architecture, proximity lighting, movement, gaze, 

camera angle, and so on”  

 

In sum, multimodal discourse studies the many different modes that people use to communicate with 

each other and express themselves. It propagates that people communicate and interact with each 

other, not just through writing (which is one mode) but also through speaking, gesture, gaze, and 

visual forms which are different modes. Jewitt  (35) in line with this, puts forward that “multimodality 

describes approaches that understand communication and representation to be more than about 

language, and which attend to the full range of communicational forms people use; image, gesture, 

gaze, posture, and so on and the relationships between them”.  

 

Cartoon as a Multimodal Discourse 

Onakpa (5) defines cartoon as an illustration showing the features of subjects or objects in a 

humorously exaggerated way. Cartoons are intended for satire, caricature or humour. Due to the 

nature of cartoons, they are often considered to be direct and easy-to-process means of 

communicating a message. Cartoons can be considered as a specific kind of semiotic domain and as a 

multimodal discourse, it mostly comprises of different semiotic resources like signs, words, image, 

layout, colours, music and sounds as can be seen in printed and animated videos. Gee (18) defines a 

semiotic domain “as any set of practices that recruits one or more modalities to communicate 

distinctive type of meaning”.  

 

Cartoon makes use of the verbal, visual, colour, music to enhance its meaning. Its humor, effect and 

message can result not only from the image and text interaction, but also from colour, gaze, layout as 

may be the case. Therefore in the study cartoons, the reader should pay attention to all verbal and 

visual details made available in order to grasp the meaning of the cartoon, since cartoons in 

newspapers constitutes one of the most strategic and vital medium of disseminating information and 

reorienting the public on current issues reflecting social realities of a particular society at a particular 

time. In addition o this, its persuasive techniques which are literary technique use to present ideas 

through reason and logic like symbols, labeling, analogy irony, exaggeration & distortion  should be 

on the lookout. 

 

Theoretical Framework of Visual Social Semiotics Theory 

The visual social semiotics is an adaptation from Halliday’s language metafunctions namely; the 

ideational, the interpersonal and the textual metafunctions. Kress and Van (20) considered that “the 

visual, like all semiotic modes, has to serve several communicational and representational 

requirements, in order to function as a full system of communication”. They assume that image, color, 

music, typography and other visual modes are similar to language and they can simultaneously fulfill 

and realize these three broad communicative metafunctions as language does; representational, 



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144                         Ifechelobi & Ilodinso 

interactive and compositional metafunctions. In view of this, image and other visual modes can 

represent objects and their relations in the world and they often communicate things other than words.   

 

Methodology 

The data for the analysis are cartoons from the two national newspapers; Vanguard and Punch. Both 

the online and printed forms were used. The analysis uses two metafunctions. These two 

metafunctions are: Representational and Interactive metafunctions 

 

Representational Metafunction: This analysis is associated with the processes or the activity 

described the attributes or the qualities of the participants and, then the circumstances in which the 

action is being developed (Kress and Van Leewen, 25). When participants are connected by vectors of 

motion (actional process) or by eyelines (reactional process), presenting unfolding actions and events, 

it is called a narrative structure.  Other processes are; transactional and non transactional, speech 

process. It also has conceptual patterns, where participants are represented in terms of their class, 

structure or meaning (Kress & Van Leeuwen 28). In this aspect, we have the classificational, 

analytical and symbolical processes. Classificational processes relate participants to each other; there 

is always a subordinate for a superordinate. Analytical processes connect participants in terms of part-

whole structures; the parts/possessive Attributes belong to the whole/carrier while symbolic processes 

depict what a participant is or means. This can be attributive or symbolic.  

 

Interpersonal Metafunction:  This analysis presents features of multimodal texts, the relationships 

between the visual, the producer and the viewer, together with the analysis of the intersemiotic mood 

in both verbal and visual modes (Unsworth and Wheeler, 69–70; Unsworth, 70). In the verbal mode, 

writers address their readers by making statements, asking questions, making offers or requiring some 

kind of action of them.  

 

Royce (71–72) states that among the visual techniques used to analyze interpersonal meaning are the 

absence or presence of facial expressions towards the viewer, gestures which make demands or offers 

information to the viewer. Demands are considered to establish an imaginary relation with the viewer 

since they address her/him directly. Offer, on the other hand, address the viewer indirectly, as there is 

no ‘gaze’ contact between participants. It depicts the represented participants impersonally as items of 

information or objects for contemplation. Interactive meaning are also defined on the basis of 

perspective and social distance, the level of involvement by the viewer, the power relations between 

the viewer and the represented participants and, finally, the degrees of social distance and intimacy. 

The level of involvement between the image-producer, the viewers and the RPs in a visual is encoded 

in the horizontal angle, which is concerned with frontal and oblique planes. The vertical angle 

transmits power relationships between the represented participants and the viewer within an image. 

Royce (72) states that the high angle forces the viewers to look down on the RPs, which is suggestive 

of superiority to them, or of their significance. A low angle forces the viewers to look up to them, 

which is suggestive of the viewer’s inferior position, or of the importance of the portrayed 

participant(s). An eye-level angle is suggestive of a sense of equality between the viewer and the 

represented participants. 

 

Data analysis  

Image 1: The Sad Reality (Vanguard, 1st Dec, 2018. Pg 18) 

 
The carton depicts a voting process in Nigeria. The participants (voters) are all blindfolded with 

different national interests like “same” religion or ethnic group, poverty and these are the rationale for 



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145                         Ifechelobi & Ilodinso 

their voting while the partially blind man leading them is considered as a politician has a personal 

interest.  

 

Representational Metafunction 

The participants represented above are icons depicting a voting process. Vectors are formed by limbs, 

the hands they placed on each other’s shoulder which serves as an act of (guide to) movement and this 

serves as chain that binds them. The participant that creates the vector is the politician who is the 

‘Actor’ while the voters receive the action and they are the ‘Goal’. In the conceptual process, the 

symbolic attributes of the picture are the box and staff carried by the politician which the box can be 

attributed to contain the stipends or gifts given to the voters for selling their votes while the staff of 

authority shows his social status. The mercenary is made to stand, represented in a dark shade. This 

signifies evil and implies shadiness and thirst for blood as he is a voter being used by the politician to 

achieve electoral rigging. The baton which he uses to urge the people, symbolizes the gun or 

instrument of torture used to achieve this feat. The voters are being led as slaves following their 

master. 

 

Interactive Metafunction 

From the image, the gaze of the represented participants is not on the viewer so this is referred to as 

‘offer’ image. This means that cartoonist presents the participants as an object to be contemplated, 

acknowledged or contradicted. The angle from which these participants are presented is from the side 

which is an oblique horizontal plane. As a result, the viewer is detached from the participants, but 

there is a sense of equality between the represented participants and the viewer(s). The colour creates 

a feeling of distaste over the electoral affairs of the country. 

This cartoon captioned “Blindfolded since 1999… The Sad Reality” implies that since the military 

handed governance to the civilian government in 1999, Nigerian nation has not witnessed an unbiased 

or uncorrupted election process as to be blindfolded means to tie one’s head to cover the eyes so as to 

disable the sight. 

Image 2: We can’t pay New Minimum Wage (Vanguard March 17th, 2018) 

 
 

This image centers on the new National Minimum wage bill of N30, 000 signed into law by the 

President, Mohammed Buhari on April 18th, 2019. This new national minimum wage met stiff refusal 

by some state Governors to adhere to this law, hence the leaders of Nigeria Labour Congress NLC, 

Trade Union Congress of Nigeria ULC, threaten to go on a national indefinite strike on November 6th, 

2019, if the new minimum wage will not be implemented by the governors in all the 36 states of the 

federation. This image portrays the obvious situations of the workers, as battered, bruised by hardship, 

starvation and suffering as a result of poor salary structure. 

 

Representational Meaning  

These participants are in a minor narrative transactional process where their glances are directed at 

each other as they are engaged in a conversation. They are connected by a vector which is their gazes 

on each other and this is a reactional process. They are both reacting to the issue on ground, which is 

on the impending strike.  The worker looks at the governor with wonder on his unflinching altitude.   

 

 

Interactive Meaning 

The image act of the picture is that of demand since the participants do not look at the viewer directly, 

rather at one another and this makes the participants to have a direct relationship with each other, 

owing that they direct each other personally. The relationship between the worker and the governor is 



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146                         Ifechelobi & Ilodinso 

defined by the distance between them in the cartoon which is a far social distance as there is visible 

space between the participants. The governor is viewed from a high level which is a vertical angel 

relations and their eye level is used to maintain equal relation as both is bent on their respective 

decisions. The colour  used in the cartoon is synonymous with the event portrayed. 

Image 3: Soliciting for Foreign Aid (Punch, October 18th, 2018). 

 

 

 

This graphic representation is sarcasm on President Buhari’s address at the 72nd session of the United 

Nations General Assembly (UNGA) held at New York on Tuesday, September 19th, 2017. The annual 

debate is an occasion where world leaders gather to discuss global issues. President Buhari on this 

occasion decried the ethnic killing and persecution of Muslims in Myanmar, beckon the aid of the 

United Nations to halt this atrocious act so as to stop the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar.  

 

Representational Meaning 

From the image, two represented participants are used, a man and a boy.  The participants are in a 

narrative process, as they are both engrossed in an action, being surrounded by burning fire. These 

participants are connected by a vector as they appear looking at the crisis and so they are both reacting 

to the chaotic environment. They are in a transactional process. Their utterances are being linked to 

them by an arrow pointing each to his utterance. Again the participants are in a classificational 

process where the first participant is superordinate to the second who is subordinate and they can be 

identified due to a number of signifiers. The first participant is the President and the signifiers are his 

physical appearance and way of dressing, (spectacle, agbada) while the second participant could be 

referred to a child, which stands to represent the Nigerian masses. The first participant is portrayed in 

pains, signified by the presence of tears drops. He is soliciting for foreign aid to stop the killing of 

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The second participant on the other hand is tapping the first 

participant, drawing his attention to Boko Haram and Fulani-herdsmen killing in his own country 

Nigeria 

 

Interactive Meaning 

The image act is that of an offer as neither the participants directed its gaze at the viewer or to each 

other; each is engrossed in different matters. This act leaves the viewers to contemplate on the 

message of the image. The distance between the participants and the viewer is a close social distance, 

an impersonal relation, but there is no equal view between the boy and the man, since the man is so 

engrossed in a different matter.  The man is viewed on a high angle and this suggests its superiority 

while the boy is on a level angle. 

Image 4: Office of the Governor Imo State (Punch, January 3rd, 2019). 

 
This graphic has the setting of the office of the past Governor of Imo State in the person of Mr. 

Rochas Okorocha as can be seen by caption on the table. He is shown reading a paper. This image 

presents a dissatisfied and angry man in his office, reading a newspaper that has written probably a 

tabloid on him.  

 



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Representational Meaning  

The represented participant is presented to the viewers as someone in his office reading a newspaper. 

This would be attributed to be conceptual process where represented participants are static and are in 

terms of their more generalized and more or less stable timeless essence, (Kress & Van Leeuwen 36). 

This process is divided into classificational, analytical and symbolical. In analytical process, studying 

the image above the possessive attributes in this image are the flags, table and chair and they are 

possessive attribute of the office, which is the carrier. The setting fits in together and this can be 

referred to as structured analytical process. This image presents a dissatisfied and angry man in his 

office, reading a newspaper.  

 

Interactive Meaning  

In the interactive meaning, the participant’s eyes appear to be looking at something the viewer cannot 

see. An eye-line is formed as a vector emanating from the participant to the unknown object, and this 

makes it an image act of offer. The participant is reacting to the unknown object or subject which is 

oblivious to the reader/viewer. The absence of a Phenomenon further classifies the image as a non-

transactional reactional process and this makes the viewer to imagine what the participant is looking 

or reading in the newspaper. This creates a powerful sense of apprehension to the readers of the 

cartoon. The social distance is a close personal distance, which is an intimate relationship with the 

participant and the viewer, showing affinity or respect. The colour of the image portrays the chaotic 

environment. 

 

Conclusion 

In summary, the framework of visual social semiotics proposed by Kress and Van Leeuwen, 

highlights how visuals or images are used in communication. It buttresses the fact that language is by 

no means the only means of communication or disseminating information, although it is the primary 

mode of communication. In most cases, other semiotic modes can function solely or intertwine with 

language to enhance meaning. In line with this, this study pointed out that images can be studied in 

correlation with other modes, other than language and can also combine with written word as can be 

seen in the cases of labeling and speech processes. It also pointed out that there are some relationships 

between the image and language, yet image is not dependent on the language explanation for it has its 

own structure and organization. The language explanation makes the concrete image more specific 

and reflects the image more clearly, while the image makes the content of the language more vivid, 

bringing to focus, fore messages which ordinarily might be difficult to express. 

 

From this study, it can be concluded that, in this multi-media age, traditional literacy is not enough. 

The combination of language with other social semiotics resources and keen attention to the function 

of all of them (image, music, colour, language and so on) would communicate meaning more 

comprehensively and efficiently. 

 

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