The political cartoon as educationalist journalism : David Low's portrayal of mass unemployment in interwar Britain
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Journalism Studies
Publication Date
10-1-2013
Volume
14
Issue
5
First Page
681
Last Page
697
Keywords
David Low, journalism, mass culture, political cartoons, unemployment
Abstract
This article examines David Low's depiction of unemployment in his cartoons during the interwar period, as a case study of the political cartoon as journalism. In doing so, it highlights the instability of journalism as a genre or, put more positively, the self-conscious blurring of generic forms. Even as the word journalist shed its mid-nineteenth-century opprobrium, late nineteenth-century voices had argued over the competing claims of reporters, leader-writers, and proprietors to the title of journalist (Hampton 2005). Low, while claiming his caricature as art, simultaneously asserted his identity as a journalist and the status of caricature as journalism. This articulation constituted, among other things, a response to contemporary debates about the New Journalism. In an era in which cultural traditionalists and leftist political writers both lamented what they saw as the debasement of public discourse through a popular journalism that was incapable of grappling with complexity, and in which, they argued, the yielding of the word to image was one of its gravest failings, Low used caricature to offer systemic critiques of British political and economic arrangements. Accordingly, while the interwar popular press was commonly dismissed as lacking in serious political contenta dismissal that has generally been echoed by historians (Bingham 2012)Low's political cartoons demonstrated the capacity for conveying serious political messages within an entertaining medium.
DOI
10.1080/1461670X.2013.810905
Print ISSN
1461670X
E-ISSN
14699699
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis
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Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Hampton, M. (2013). The political cartoon as educationalist journalism : David Low's portrayal of mass unemployment in interwar Britain. Journalism Studies, 14(5), 681-697. doi: 10.1080/1461670X.2013.810905