Abstract

News has been an avenue through which to execute political discourse. Editorials, as part of the news, include opinions incorporated with cartoons that portray the main issue or person. Specifically, editorial cartoons help readers visualize the context that potentially unravels biases about the issue or person. Editorial cartoons, also known as political cartoons, have been commonly published in the Philippines that give sides and raise awareness, addressing or concerning socio-political issues. This article analyzed editorial cartoons about President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s presidency from different news outlets such as Rappler, Daily Tribune, and Mindanao Times. Through Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar theory, the study explored how multimodal features in editorial cartoons are employed to communicate political messages and how these news outlets portray President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The researchers used multimodal discourse analysis to interpret and unravel the political messages and portrayal of political actors. The results of the study showed that colors and typography are utilized in editorial cartoons to convey political messages to the audience. In addition, President Marcos Jr. was portrayed negatively in the six editorial cartoons chosen by the researchers. Moreover, other political actors involved in the editorial cartoons were portrayed neither positively nor negatively but contributed to the negative portrayal of the editorial cartoons about President Marcos Jr. Finally, exploring how politicians and other political actors are portrayed in editorial cartoons makes the audience critically think about a certain issue, leading them to engage and participate more in political discussions beneficial to the larger society.