Ethnic humour in cartoons

Abstract Cartoons are designed as a response to a social event and aim to create a humorous effect in the audience through their multimodal discourse. The interpretation requires contextual and cultural information which has to be shared by the cartoonist and the audience. Our research focuses on the dialogue of humorous cartoons between the West and the East. From a dialogic perspective, the action, i.e., the cartoons published in the French and Swiss media, generates a reaction in the Romanian media. We discuss the transfer of national stereotypes at a European level and show that, although the cartoons target a particular out-group, they ricochet to another group. Thus, new boundaries are set up and humour functions as a divisive social activity.