{"title":"Power and satire in the front-page images of Mariano Rajoy: visual motifs as political humour","authors":"Manuel Garin, Daniel Pérez-Pamies","doi":"10.7592/ejhr2021.9.3.534","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the use of photography and visual motifs as forms of political humour in contemporary media. By studying the representation of former Prime Minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy in the front pages of three Spanish newspapers (El Mundo, El País and La Vanguardia) between 2011 and 2017, the paper identifies and questions the liaisons between power and satire present in the so-called “serious” press, focusing on how different photographic traits concerning layout, composition and gestures reflect ideological choices. This photographic satire developed by printed media is then framed within a figurative tradition that goes back to Spanish royal portraiture, from Velázquez to Goya, which employs common strategies for the visual depiction of power, including satirical and humorous attributes to push specific political agendas. This examination, based on the quantified study and the visual analysis of more than 7,500 front pages, is part of the national research project Visual Motifs in the Public Sphere: Production and Circulation of Images of Power in Spain, 2011-2017. In order to determine a useful procedural approach to satirical expressions in photographs, defining which front pages invoke a remarkable satirical content, this article also presents a comparative study and a categorisation based on formal (im)balances related to the concepts of visual motif and humour.","PeriodicalId":37540,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Humour Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Humour Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.7592/ejhr2021.9.3.534","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article explores the use of photography and visual motifs as forms of political humour in contemporary media. By studying the representation of former Prime Minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy in the front pages of three Spanish newspapers (El Mundo, El País and La Vanguardia) between 2011 and 2017, the paper identifies and questions the liaisons between power and satire present in the so-called “serious” press, focusing on how different photographic traits concerning layout, composition and gestures reflect ideological choices. This photographic satire developed by printed media is then framed within a figurative tradition that goes back to Spanish royal portraiture, from Velázquez to Goya, which employs common strategies for the visual depiction of power, including satirical and humorous attributes to push specific political agendas. This examination, based on the quantified study and the visual analysis of more than 7,500 front pages, is part of the national research project Visual Motifs in the Public Sphere: Production and Circulation of Images of Power in Spain, 2011-2017. In order to determine a useful procedural approach to satirical expressions in photographs, defining which front pages invoke a remarkable satirical content, this article also presents a comparative study and a categorisation based on formal (im)balances related to the concepts of visual motif and humour.
本文探讨了摄影和视觉母题在当代媒体中作为政治幽默形式的运用。通过研究2011年至2017年间西班牙前首相马里亚诺·拉霍伊在三家西班牙报纸(El Mundo, El País和La Vanguardia)头版上的表现,本文确定并质疑所谓“严肃”媒体中存在的权力与讽刺之间的联系,重点关注不同的摄影特征在布局,构图和手势方面如何反映意识形态选择。这种由印刷媒体发展起来的摄影讽刺,然后在一种可以追溯到西班牙王室肖像的具象传统中被框架起来,从Velázquez到戈雅,它采用了对权力的视觉描绘的共同策略,包括讽刺和幽默的属性,以推动特定的政治议程。这项研究基于对7500多个头版的量化研究和视觉分析,是国家研究项目“公共领域的视觉主题:2011-2017年西班牙权力图像的生产和流通”的一部分。为了确定一种有用的程序方法来处理照片中的讽刺表达,确定哪些头版引发了引人注目的讽刺内容,本文还提出了一项比较研究,并基于与视觉母题和幽默概念相关的形式(非)平衡进行了分类。
期刊介绍:
The European Journal of Humour Research (EJHR) is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal with an international multidisciplinary editorial board. Although geographically-oriented towards the ˋold continentˊ, the European perspective aims at an international readership and contributors. EJHR covers the full range of work being done on all aspects of humour phenomenon. EJHR is designed to respond to the important changes that have affected the study of humour but particular predominance is given to the past events and current developments in Europe.