Use of visual images of presidential candidates in editorial cartoons

The editorial cartoon\u27s ability to distill the most complex issues into a simple visual metaphor, coupled with its availability to a mass audience, potentially makes it a potent instrument for political communication. Despite the quantitative growth of political cartoons, research on the effect of editorial cartoons as a mass medium of communication has drawn little attention. The current study explores the visual images of presidential candidates portrayed in the editorial cartoons in the 2000 presidential election campaign. A content analysis of editorial cartoons about the two main presidential candidates, Bush and Gore, appeared on the editorial pages of 78 newspapers, was undertaken. The study focused on defining the nature of the agenda of issues set by editorial cartoons, and determining how the cartoons framed the 2000 presidential campaign to orient the audiences\u27 understanding of campaign issues. The overall findings demonstrated that, in the 2000 election campaign, character issues of the presidential candidates emerged as the most dominant agenda, occurring in 30.43% of the sampled cartoons. Furthermore, in portraying the presidential candidates and the campaign, cartoonists notably used character and competency frames in over 60% of the samples. These two frames are related to the morality and ability as a leader of the candidates