the representations of leadership by example in editorial cartoons

Jurnal Komunikasi

Malaysian Journal of Communication

Jilid 32(1) 2016:625-650

THE REPRESENTATIONS OF LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE

IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

ROHANI EMBONG, HANITA HASSAN

& NOOR AIREEN IBRAHIM

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

Abstract

Tun Dr Mahathir was the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia, who was

well known for his leadership values and major contributions to the

country’s development. The dynamic and long career of Tun Dr

Mahathir had given a lot of ideas and materials for Lat, a famous

Malaysian cartoonist, in producing editorial cartoons with which Tun

Dr Mahathir is the main character. Having said that, this paper thus

aims to discuss the representations of Tun Dr Mahathir’s leadership in

Lat’s editorial cartoons. The data for this study were 98 Lat’s editorial

cartoons which were published in local newspapers from 1979 to

2004. The visual analysis was conducted using Multimodality, by

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which the represented leadership was determined through the

identification of participants and process. Whilst the linguistics texts

were analysed using Systemic Functional Linguistics focusing on the

ideational messages. The findings of this study, among others, reveal

that Tun Dr Mahathir was depicted as an open minded leader, who

listened to others. Besides, Tun Dr Mahathir is also portrayed as a

leader who kept abreast with the development of Information

Communication Technology and hardworking. The aim of depicting

the leadership values practiced by Tun Dr Mahathir in the editorial

cartoons is to portray him as a leader who led by examples.

Keywords: Leadership by examples, visual representations, linguistic

representations, systemic functional linguistics, multimodality.

KEPIMPINAN MELALUI MELALUI TAULADAN DALAM

KARTUN EDITORIAL

Abstrak

Tun Dr Mahathir adalah Perdana Menteri yang ke empat yang terkenal

dengan ciri-ciri kepimpinannya dan sumbangannya kepada

pembangunan negara. Kerjayanya yang dinamik dan tempoh yang

lama telah memberikan ilham dan bahan kepada Lat, seorang kartunis

terkenal, untuk menghasilkan kartun editorial di mana Tun Dr

Mahathir sebagai watak utama. Oleh yang demikian, artikel ini

bertujuan membincangkan gambaran ciri kepimpinan Tun Dr Mahathir

di dalam kartun editorial Lat. Data kajian adalah merupakan 98 kartun

The Representations of Leadership by

Example in Editorial Cartoons

Rohani Embong, Hanita Hassan & Noor Aireen Ibrahim

627

editorial Lat yang diterbitkan di dalam suratkhabar tempatan dari

tahun 1979 hingga 2004. Analisa visual dilaksanakan menggunakan

Multimodaliti,di mana gambaran kepimpinan ditentukan melalui

penentuan peserta dan proses. Manakala teks linguistik dianalisa

menggunakan teori Sistemik Fungsional Linguistik yang fokus kepada

mesej ideational. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan yang Tun Dr Mahathir

digambarkan sebagai seorang pemimpin yang berfikiran terbuka iaitu

seorang yang mendengar kepada orang lain. Selain itu, Tun Dr

Mahathir juga digambarkan sebagai pemimpin yang mengikuti

perkembangan pembangunan Teknologi Maklumat dan Komunikasi

dan berkerja keras. Tujuan gambaran ciri kepimpinan yang

dipraktiskan oleh Tun Dr Mahathir di dalam kartun editorial adalah

untuk memaparkan beliau sebagai seorang pemimpin yang memimpin

melalui tauladan.

Kata kunci: Kepimpinan melalui tauladan, gambaran visual,

gambaran linguistik, sistemik fungsional linguistik, multimodaliti.

INTRODUCTION

Editorial cartoons, or also known as political cartoons, are used as a means of

expressing cartoonists’ views on current and political issues and regarded as a tool

for freedom of speech (Straubhaar and LaRos, 2002; Horn, 1981; Hoff, 1976;

Feldman, 1995; Mahamood, 2004b). Freedom of speech, or also known as

freedom of expression, can be defined as the right to communicate, seek, receive

and impart one’s opinions and ideas regardless of the medium used (Haskin,

1996). Nevertheless, crossing the limit of freedom of speech may result in

undesirable actions and this thus suggests that cartoonists have to be extra careful

not to violate the limit of freedom of speech in publishing their editorial cartoons

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(Collier, 2011). Even though editorial cartoons are widely read by several

hundred million people around the world, the usage and acceptance of such

cartoons differ from one country to another (Markow, 1972). Editorial cartoons

are well accepted in Europe and are considered as an important form of political

communication in Japan (Feldman, 1995). The Turkish, on the other hand,

practices a more closed policy as a consequence of the abolishment of press

freedom by Abdülhamid II, the 34th

Sultan of Turkey (Tunc, 2002). Since then

strict rules governing drawing and publishing political issues were implemented.

Editorial cartoons have been published in Malaysian newspapers, for

example, Utusan Melayu; Warta Melayu; Majlis and Lembaga; since 1930s

featuring some of the more prolific cartoonists at that time such as Abu Bakar bin

Mohd. Nor; Amir Hamzah bin Mir Baru; Abd. Manan Ali Samad and Mohammad

Nor Khalid (Mahamood, 2004b). As mentioned earlier presenting one’s idea

freely through editorial cartoons may be risky, nonetheless, Mohammad Nor

Khalid was the only Malaysian cartoonist who managed to produce editorial

cartoons which depict a well-known political figure, Tun Dr Mahathir,

successfully and furthermore his cartoons are well accepted and appreciated

(Mahamood, 2004a; Ujang, 2009). Furthermore, empirical research into

Malaysian editorial cartoons from the language and communication perspective

has largely been ignored which brings to light the aim of the current study. This

paper therefore aims to discuss the linguistic and visual representations of Tun Dr

Mahathir’s leadership as portrayed in Mohammad Nor Khalid’s editorial cartoons.

It is worth noting that the findings of a study conducted in investigating the

representations of Tun Dr Mahathir’s leadership by Mohammad Nor Khalid show

that Tun Dr Mahathir is presented as a leader who focused on home affairs,

hardworking, thinking out of a box, a strict and confident leader (see Table 1).

Nonetheless, the focus of this paper is on the representations of Tun Mahathir as a

leader who laid emphasis on the development of the country, listened to others and




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worked hard during his premiership.

Mohammad Nor Khalid (or known as Lat) is one of the most well

recognised Malaysian cartoonists who started editorial cartoonist career in 1975.

Lat was open and critical in presenting his ideas through subtle, indirect and

symbolic style of drawing (Lent, 2003; Mahamood, 2004a). More importantly,

Lat depicted political figures in an ‘unusual, abnormal or unexpected’ way

regardless of their status or personalities and his depiction results in humorous

cartoons (Mahamood, 2004a: 72). Honouring his numerous contributions and

achievements, Lat was presented with various awards, for instance, Fukuoka

Asian Culture Prize, Petronas Journalism Awards (Special Jury Award), and an

Honorary Doctorate in Anthropology and Sociology (Mahamood, 2004a).

Tun Dr Mahathir’s long premiership, from 1981 to 2003, had given Lat a great

deal of ideas and materials to work on and subsequently Tun Dr Mahathir became

the most favourite character and subject in Lat’s editorial cartoons (Mahamood,

2004a; Jasin, 2004). During his premiership, he was ardent about Malaysia’s

infrastructural and economic development (Ismail and Saad, 2007). Some of his

major contributions are: the Malaysian national car, the Twin Tower, the Kuala

Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and the North-South Highway. Apart from

his enthusiasm for national development, Tun Mahathir firmly believed in

leadership by example (Mohamad, 2011). For instance, Tun Dr Mahathir strongly

opposed the perception of Malays as incapable of hardworking (Mohamad, 2011)

and to proof that this perception was wrong, he never took the full leave that he

was entitled to as prime minister. In addition, his working hours were longer than

those of other government employees and ministers (Mohamad, 2011).

This paper thus aims to discuss the representations of Tun Dr Mahathir’s

leadership values, which he personally practiced and tried to instill in Malaysian

society during his premiership. The visual and linguistic representations of Tun

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Dr Mahathir’s leadership are discussed using the multimodal (Kress and Van

Leeuwen, 1996) and Systemic Functional Linguistics approaches (Halliday, 1985).

The Use of Editorial Cartoons in Portraying Political Figures

A number of studies has examined editorial cartoons, Conners (2010), for

example, examined the representations of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in

the political cartoons during the United State 2008 presidential election by

analyzing online political cartoons produced by 57 American cartoonists. Conners

was particularly interested in the portrayals of racial and gender-specific themes

and found that Hillary Clinton appeared more often in the political cartoons

compared to Barack Obama and were portrayed as competitors. The

representations of Barack Obama were more oriented to racial themes while the

representations of Hillary Clinton were more along gender-related issues.

Following Conners (2010), we conducted a study to examine the representations

of Tun Dr Mahathir, a Malaysian prominent political figure, as a leader and the

findings show that the editorial cartoons highlighted Tun Dr Mahathir’s leadership

values which have turned him into a role model.

On the other hand, previous studies have also analysed political carrtoons

from the linguistics and visual perspectives. For example, Mazid (2008) conducted

a study on 36 political cartoons which portrayed the former American president,

George W, Bush and Osama bin Laden. Out of 36 cartoons analysed, 16 cartoons

were found to portray Bush as the main character, whilst 14 cartoons showed Bin

Laden as the main character and, in addition, six cartoons depicted both, Bush and

bin Laden, as the main characters (Mazid, 2008). The results of the analysis show

that Bush and Bin Laden believed that they were ‘fighting a holy war, fulfilling a

“mission” and answering a “call” in Bush’s words and doing jihad in bin Laden’s’

(Mazid, 2008: 451). Similarly, this paper discusses the representations of Tun Dr

Mahathir’s leadership from the linguistic and visual perspectives since editorial

cartoons consist of two modes, which are linguistic text and visual images.




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In addition, Koetzle and Brunell (1996) analysed 505 editorial cartoons

which were published in American national press during the 1992 presidential

campaign. The study adopted the content analysis method and however, the study

focused more on the personality and qualities of the candidates, who were Bush,

Clinton and Perot, portrayed in the editorial cartoons compared to the policies. It is

interesting that the personalities of the political figures are more prone to be the

subject of studies, and similarly, the focus of this paper is on the representations of

Tun Dr Mahathir's leadership values, but not on his policies.

In addition, a study was conducted on the representations of George W.

Bush and Albert Gore as candidates for the US 2000 presidential election in 490

editorial cartoons, which were published in six American newspapers from 1999

to 2000, identified five leadership elements portrayed in the editorial cartoons

(Edwards, 2001). The elements are character, viability, competency, charisma and

independence. The findings show that Bush and Gore were similarly treated for

the categories of character, viability and independence, but not for the categories

of competence and charisma. For these two categories, there was a gap on how the

cartoonists portrayed the competence and the charisma of the leading candidates.

Mahamood (2004b) conducted a study on Malay editorial cartoons

published in nine Malaysian newspapers between 1930s and 1993. Interestingly,

the findings show that the editorial cartoons are created based on current political

and as well as social issues. Before the independence, for instance, the cartoonists

during that era focused on the issues which were related to British colonization,

followed by Malaysian independence and this is to say that the issues change

according to time. It is therefore important to note that the data of this study were

Lat’s editorial cartoons taken from Malaysian newspapers, which were published

from 1979 to 2004, and the findings therefore reflect the current issues of those

respective years.

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RESEARCH METHOD

The data for this study were Lat’s editorial cartoons which were published in local

newspapers from 1979-2004 and given the aim of this study which was to

investigate the representations of Tun Dr Mahathir’s leadership, it was therefore

crucial to ensure that the selected cartoons analysed for this study portrayed the

image of Tun Dr Mahathir. A total of 98 editorial cartoons were selected based on

the specific criteria which were: the occurrence of Tun Dr Mahathir’s image; and

both types of elements, linguistics which contains at least a clause, and visual

images. The visual images were analysed using Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996)

Multimodality theory (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 1996) whilst the linguistic text

was analysed using Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday and

Matthiessen, 2004). The following sections explain the ways in which the data

were analysed using both mentioned theoretical frameworks.

Multimodal Analysis

Following SFL theory, Multimodality consists of three components, which are

representational, interpersonal and compositional (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 1996;

Guijarro and Sanz, 2008). Representational component resembles the ideational

metafunction, whilst compositional component resembles the textual

metafunction. The visual analysis in this study focused on the representational

component and the analysis was done through the identification of represented

participants and types of process. Participants can be in the form of people, places

or things, and types of process, on the other hand, can be categorised as conceptual

or narrative. In line with Halliday’s (1985) process types, Conceptual is a process

of being, whilst Narrative is a process of doing (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004).

The process type of the cartoons was first determined by identifying the eye-

vector line of the participants in the editorial cartoons. In other words, if there

exist an eye-vector line, the process is therefore determined as a narrative, or




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transactional reaction while the absence of an eye-vector line suggests a

conceptual process, or also known as a non-transactional reaction.

After determining the process types, only then the participants were

categorised accordingly, with which the aim was to interpret the intended message

of visual images (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 1996). The identification of the

process types and participants assisted us to construe the meaning of the images in

terms of what is happening, who is/are involved, when and where it took place.

Linguistic Analysis Using Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach

Linguistic text is considered as an important element of editorial cartoons, by

which its function is to assist readers grasp the intended meaning. Moreover,

images of people are difficult to interpret, adding linguistic messages alongside

images can therefore help readers to grasp the intended meanings since there is a

bi-directional relationship between word and image (Brierly, 1995; Hassan, 2012).

Following this, the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) was adopted

to analyse the functions of linguistic text and it in turn helped us interpret the

linguistic message of editorial cartoons.

There are three types of metafunction in SFL: ideational, interpersonal and

textual (Halliday 1985). Firstly, ideational metafunction reflects the social process

in which the language is implicated (Halliday and Webster, 2009). The analysis of

ideational metafunction focused on the meaning of Tun Dr Mahathir’s

representations as a leader which was delivered by means of linguistic texts found

in the editorial cartoons. Following this framework, the transitivity analysis was

carried out, by which the types of process, participants and circumstantial

elements were determined. The process type was firstly identified through the

representations of a verbal group, whilst the types of participants from its nominal

group and types of circumstantial elements from its adverbial or prepositional

group (Halliday, 1985).

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The processes or verb phrases were classified into three main types which

are material, mental or relational (Halliday, 1994). A material process is a process

of doing that connotes ‘the notion that some entity does something to some other

entity’ (Halliday, 1994: 110). A mental process, on the other hand, is a process of

sensing which includes feeling, thinking and perceiving, and finally relational

process is a process of being which connotes ‘something is said to be something

else’ (Halliday, 1994: 119). The next step was determining the roles of the

participants in the editorial cartoons, and it is worth noting that the role of

participants highly depends on the process types. The participants of a material

process, for instance, are actor and goal; the participants for a mental process are

senser and phenomenon; while the participants for a relational process type are

carrier/attribute or token/value (Halliday, 1994).

Types of circumstantial element which occured in the data were also

examined. The circumstantial elements are realised by an adverbial group or

prepositional phrase and most importantly the function of circumstantial elements

is to expand the information by providing details as a means of elaborating,

illustrating or extending the information given (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004).

The circumstantial elements found in the data were categorised into different types

following SFL theory, for instance, extent, cause, location, matter, manner, role

and accompaniment. Each type of circumstantial elements signified the type of

meaning that could be construed from the cartoons. In summary, the identification

of process types, participants and circumstantial elements was very helpful in

helping us grasp the cartoonist’s intended messages by determining what

happened, who were involved in the cartoons and the details from the extended

information.

Based on the analysis done on 98 Lat editorial cartoons which featured Tun Dr

Mahathir as the main character, Table 1 summarized the 11 leadership values that

emerged from the portrayal of Tun Mahathir in Lat’s editorial cartoons.




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Table 1: Representations of Tun Dr Mahathir’s Leadership Values in Lat’s

Editorial Cartoons

Representations of Tun Dr Mahathir Frequency of Occurrences

Focused on Country’s Development 17

Focused on Home Affairs 14

Hardworking 13

Strict and Confident Leader 13

Established Good Rapport with Others 12

Thinking out Of The Box 7

Valued Time 7

Loyal to the Party 6

Accommodated Others 4

Listened to Others 3

Concerned with Environmental Issues 2

TOTAL 98

It is evident that the portrayal of Tun Mahathir in Lat’s editorial cartoons is

positive. As shown in Table 1, Tun Dr Mahathir is represented as a leader with

eleven leadership values, for example, as a leader who focused on the country’s

development, hardworking, strict and confident, thinking out of box and so forth.

Nonetheless, the discussion of this paper focuses on three values, for example,

listening to others, focusing on the country’s development and hardworking,

which played an important role in shaping Tun Dr Mahathir’s identity as a leader

by examples.

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The Visual Representations of Tun Dr Mahathir’s Leadership Portrayed in

Editorial Cartoons

The multimodal analysis conducted clearly reveals that one of Tun Dr Mahathir’s

leadership values portrayed in Lat’s editorial cartoons is a leader who listened to

others (see Table 1). Tun Dr Mahathir is represented as an open minded leader

who listened to others’ views no matter from whom. Figure 1 shows Tun Dr

Mahathir is listening attentively to his gardener.

Figure 1: The representation of Tun Dr Mahathir with his gardener and

subordinate officer (Khalid, 2004: 74)

In the cartoon, the gardener is placed on the left and he could be easily

identified as a gardener from the visual cues, for instance, his attire, the bucket

hat, garden hoe and watering can. One needs the general or cultural knowledge to

enable him to interpret the denotative or literal meaning from the visual cues

(Barthes, 1977). In other words, one can easily recognise the gardener using his

cultural knowledge of how a gardener looks like. In addition, the linguistic cue

found in the speech bubble, ‘Datuk, your gardener would like to…’, provides

further indication to help readers construe the character as a gardener.




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The officer, on the other hand, is placed in the middle, between Tun Dr

Mahathir and the gardener. According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996), item

placed in the middle connects items placed on its left and right and this absolutely

means that the placement of the officer in the middle is to connote that he acts as a

mediator between Tun Dr Mahathir and the gardener. Similarly, he is easily

identified as an officer through the depiction of his office attire, for instance; a

coat, a tie and slacks; and holding a file. It is also interesting to note the existence

of an eye-vector from the officer to Tun Dr Mahathir and an eye-vector line

between Tun Dr Mahathir and the gardener’s. Eye-vector lines signify the

presence of a narrative process in the image (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 1996)

which means there is interaction between the characters when they exchange gaze.

It is worth noting that the cartoon reflects the historical situation in 1993,

in which the Malaysian Constitution was amended to remove legal immunity of

the royals (Kathirithamby-Wells, 2005). It was reported that the amendments

were impelled by the assault incidents involving members of the Johor royal

family and commoners (Asian-Pacific Anti-Communist League, 1993). It comes

to no surprise that the amendment was a lengthy process as the proposal was

received by disagreements from different parties (News Straits Times, dated 18

January 1993). Likewise, the findings of this study reflected the current political

issues of the respective years in which the data were taken (Mahamood, 2004b).

In Figure 1, Tun Dr Mahathir is shown sitting calmly leaning against the

chair, indicating he is in a relax posture. He is also depicted raising his eye brows

to connote his openness and attentiveness to others’ views, as raised eye brows

depict greeting and acknowledgement (Chapman, 2009). The gardener, on the

other hand, is portrayed holding a pointing stick and from the linguistic cue

‘ahem’, the act of clearing his throat, we can construe that he is commanding

some level of attention as he is about to start his briefing. There is a poster of a

tree in the background and the tree is used as an analogy to represent the

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relationship of the citizens (rakyat), the government and the royals. The rakyat is

labeled as the root, the government as the stem whereas the crown is labeled as

the shoot of the tree.

Interestingly, the labels given to the three parties represent their roles

according to the functions of different parts of the tree. The function of the root is

to absorb water and mineral as well as to synthesise nitrogen compounds. It is

similar to the roles played by the rakyat, who work to gain money and wealth. In

addition, the root of a tree is related to its shoot as the root provides water and

minerals, which are essential for the growth of the shoots. Meanwhile, the

function of the stem is to transport water and minerals to the shoot as well as to

support the tree (Kramer and Boyer, 1995). Analogically, the root-stem-shoot

relationship is similar to the rakyat-government-crown relationship, in which the

royals, rakyat and government need each other for the betterment of the country.

This clearly shows that Lat’s clever use of the tree analogy was successfully

achieved as it is extremely well-suited with the situation and the very subtle yet

effective use of the visual metaphor to illustrate the Constitutional Amendment

issue which was sensitive to the royal families. This was one of the reasons why

Lat’s criticisms and depictions of Tun Dr Mahathir, who was then the Prime

Minister of Malaysia (Mahamood, 2004a), was so well accepted.

The findings of the multimodal analysis suggest that Tun Dr Mahathir is

represented as an open minded leader who listens to others, no matter who the

person is, for instance, in Figure 1 he is portrayed listening to his gardener, who

may be regarded as one of the lowest ranking position in an organisation. This is

consistent with Tun Dr Mahathir’s view, in which he mentioned ‘if the Prime

Minister is observant and willing to listen to complaints and suggestions brought

to him, and then to make firm decisions, then Malaysia will grow and prosper

rapidly’ (Mahathir Mohamad, 2011: 355). In addition, the illustration is also

found to represent Tun Dr Mahathir ‘as a responsible leader who always has the




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nation matters at heart’ (Embong and Hassan, 2013). Most importantly, the

cartoon uses visual metaphors to subtly describe the issue of Constitutional

Amendment which was sensitive to the royal families. More studies are therefore

needed to investigate the ways in which visual metaphors are used in editorial

cartoons to disseminate issues which might have adverse consequences for social

harmony.

In addition, Tun Dr Mahathir is widely known for his tremendous efforts

and passion for the country’s development. As shown in Table 1, 17 out of the 98

Lat’s editorial cartoons analyzed in this study portrayed him as a leader who

focused on the country’s development and some of his contributions to the

country’s development that lead to the technology advancement in Malaysia are

the foundation of Proton, the Malaysian first national car, and the development of

Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) (Ismail and Saad, 2007). Figure 2 is an

example of Lat's editorial cartoons that indirectly depicts Tun Dr Mahathir's

vision for the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

towards realizing the developed nation status by the year 2020.

Figure 2: The representation of Tun Dr Mahathir who responds to rakyat’s

questions using the internet (Khalid, 2004: 107)

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Figure 2 shows Tun Dr Mahathir sitting in front of a computer with his left hand

on a keyboard while the right hand is holding a computer mouse. The linguistic

cues, ‘The leader answers questions from the rakyat on internet’ written at the

bottom of the cartoon and the phrase ‘Dear Dr M…’ on the computer screen, act as

an anchor to assist readers to construe the meaning of the image. Similar to the

role of linguistic text in Figure 1, there is a bi-directional relationship between the

linguistic text and the visual image, of which the former complements the latte in

disseminating the cartoonist's intended message (Hassan, 2012; Embong and

Hassan, 2013). It can be construed that Tun Dr Mahathir is shown responding to a

question asked by the rakyat or people by means of the internet. Given the fact

that the cartoon was published in 2004, it is thus justified to state that, as the prime

minister, Tun Dr Mahathir used the latest form of communication technology to

communicate with the public. In other words, this cartoon evidently signifies Tun

Dr Mahathir as a leader who kept abreast with the advancement in computer

technology and made full use of the internet to communicate with the public

during his premiership. This is evidenced by Mahathir’s to fully understand the

rapid development and possible applications of computers, Tun Dr Mahathir

sought assistance from Kenichi Ohmae, a Japanese business consultant

(Mohamad, 2011: 634) which clearly shows his seriousness in keeping up-to-date

with current technological advancement. It is also believed that the development

of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) was the key contributing factor towards

the advance growth in knowledge management and the cultivation of advanced

technology to prepare Malaysians towards achieving the status of a developed

nation in 2020 (Mohamad, 2011: 639). The findings, therefore, show that the

visual elements are used to realise the representations of Tun Dr Mahathir as a

leader who kept up-to-date with technological advancement and who aimed to

lead Malaysians into taking a full advantage of the latest communication




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technology. Similar to Figure 1, showing Tun Dr Mahathir communicating with

the public using the internet indirectly connotes that he was an approachable

leader and was an example to others with regard to acquiring information

technology skills.

Even though Tun Dr Mahathir is depicted facing the computer screen,

interestingly, his gaze is directed towards his wife, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah. The

presence of his wife, in Figure 2, connotes that he even worked out of his office

hours. This is to say that part from portraying Tun Dr Mahathir as a leader who

prioritized the development of information technology skills, he is also indirectly

represented as a workaholic leader who enjoyed his work (Mohamad, 2011: 40).

His gaze towards his wife is the eye vector line to indicate that the image has a

narrative process type, by which means there is an interaction between him and his

wife. Tun Dr Mahathir was also known as a hardworking leader. Figure 3 shows a

representation of Tun Dr Mahathir with a typical Malaysian family, which consists

of a father, a mother, a sister and three little brothers.

Figure 3: The representation of Tun Dr Mahathir and a typical Malaysian Family

(Khalid, 2004: 40)

As can be seen from Figure 3, the cartoons are presented in four slots, of

which in slot A, the family members are depicted watching an entertainment

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programme. This sequence is then followed by the image showing the television

programme being disrupted in slot B. Subsequently, the speech bubble appears

with the linguistic message ‘Do your homework!!’ in slot C. Finally in slot D,

Tun Dr Mahathir’s image appears on the television screen and the family

members are seen engaged in all sorts of household activities. From the context,

it can be interpreted that the adults, for instance, the father, mother and big sister,

are busy with the house chores, whilst the three children are busy studying.

Interestingly, the function of the cartoon in slot A (Figure 3) is to

foreground the setting of the context, that is, the family members are in a living

room watching a television programme. This is the representation of the way in

which a typical Malaysian family spends their free time by watching a television

programme with other family members. The cartoon shows that the father and the

four children are sitting on a sofa enjoying the television programme. However, it

seems that the mother is not happy with the programme and this can be construed

from her facial expression unlike the others, who are depicted grinning happily

while watching the show. The reason for the mother’s unhappy facial expression is

that the programme is not suitable for the children since the two dancers shown on

the screen are in inappropriate attire. It contradicts with the Islamic values, of

which ‘a Muslim woman should cover all her body except her hands and face

from strangers’ (Al-Buti, 1987: 41).

However, in slot B, the television programme is shown disrupted and the

family members are confused with the situation. This can be construed with the

symbols '!?' which appear in the speech bubble. It is then followed by slot C, in

which the message ‘Do your homework!!’ appears in a speech bubble and the

family members appeared very shocked and this can be construed from their

widely opened eyes. Consequently, in slot D, the family members are depicted

busy doing their work. The adults are busy with their house chores, for instance,

sweeping the floor, cooking and ironing. The children, on the other hand, are




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depicted reading or writing. Thus it can be construed that the children are studying

or doing their homework. The appearance of Tun Dr Mahathir's image on the

television screen, in slot D, symbolises his message which is not to waste time but

to focus on one's work is addressed to the nation in general. In addition, the

cartoon has a narrative process type since there is an eye vector line from Tun Dr

Mahathir, who is looking at the family members while they are busy with their

work to indicate there is an interaction between Tun Dr Mahathir and the family

members.

The findings of the multimodal analysis therefore signify that the editorial

cartoons are used to represent Tun Dr Mahathir as a workaholic, who took the

initiative to instill the hardworking culture in Malaysian society, with the hope

that the values practiced by Tun Dr Mahathir could be examples for others to

follow. Tun Dr Mahathir mentioned that he had to work hard in order to impress

others, he also added that hardworking is the only way to succeed in life and to

develop the country (Saimon, 2014).

In summary, the three examples of editorial cartoons discussed in this

paper highlighted the representations of Tun Mahathir’s leadership values, for

instance, listening to others, concerning with the development and hardworking,

which in turn set as examples for other fellow Malaysians to adopt. The images

of other participants found in the editorial cartoons, apart from Tun Dr Mahathir

himself, are people who surrounded both his personal and professional lives. They

included his subordinates, his wife and other fellow Malaysians. It is important to

note that, the narrative process type was found to dominate the editorial cartoons.

This is unsurprising given the fact that the purpose of cartoons is to narrate or to

tell a story, the narrative process type is therefore expected to be extensively used

in editorial cartoons compared to the conceptual process.

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The Linguistic Representations of Tun Dr Mahathir as a Leader Portrayed in

Editorial Cartoons

It is important to note that linguistics messages found in Lat’s cartoon are by far

less dominant than the visual cues. However, linguistics cues play an important

role in helping to anchor the meaning that is trying to be conveyed by the visual

messages. It was very clear that there was only one clause identified in the

editorial cartoon, as shown in Figure 1, and the clause is ‘Datuk, your gardener

would like to brief you on the real situation’. The clause is the officer’s statement

introducing the gardener to Tun Dr Mahathir. The type of process ‘would like’ in

the clause was identified as Mental and following this the participant is therefore

identified as a Senser. The Phenomenon which is ‘to brief you on the real

situation’ refers to the issue of Constitutional Amendment. From the transitivity

analysis, it can be construed that the gardener, as the senser, is ready to brief Tun

Dr Mahathir about the real situation. Similar to the study by Koetzle and Brunell

(1996), the findings of this study highlight the personalities of Tun Dr Mahathir as

a leader but not his political policies. In this case, being an open minded leader,

who listens to others, is an example of the leadership values practised by Tun Dr

Mahathir.

The findings of the SFL analysis on the clause ‘the leader answers

questions from the rakyat on internet’ in Figure 2, suggests that the function of the

clause is to assist readers to grasp the intended visual message of the editorial

cartoon. The Theme, which is ‘the leader’, connotes the departure of the message

(Halliday, 1985) thus suggesting that the focus of the message is on the leader,

which refers to Tun Dr Mahathir as the Actor of the clause. In addition, the Theme

is placed on the left to mean Given, or something that is already known. The

Rheme, ‘answers questions from the rakyat on internet’, on the other hand, is

placed on the right to signify New because it contains new information (Halliday,

1985). Following this, the findings show that the foregrounded message of the




645

clause is on the activity which is answering questions from people or rakyat and to

highlight that the internet was used as the medium of interaction. The word

‘answers’ in the clause was categorised as a Verbal process which involves

activities related to communicating and disseminating information (Halliday,

1985).

It is important to note that the circumstantial element in the clause, which

is ‘on internet’ was found to clarify the medium used by Tun Dr Mahathir in

answering the questions. This concludes that the function of the phrase ‘on

internet’ to provide the details, of which it absolutely shows the medium used by

Tun Dr Mahathir to communicate with fellow Malaysians. The clause in turn

represents Tun Dr Mahathir as a leader who adopts the latest communication

technology as a means of communicating with the public. The linguistic analysis

of Figure 2 therefore reveals that Tun Dr Mahathir is represented as an

approachable and up-to-date leader who adopted the advancement of information

technology as a way of interacting with the Malaysian public.

The clause ‘Do your homework’, in Figure 3, contains a Material process

type and it is realised with the word ‘Do’. Apart from that, the verb ‘do’ is being

placed at the beginning of the sentence to signify that this is an imperative clause,

which connotes that it is an instruction given by the sayer, who is Tun Dr

Mahathir. In addition, the phrase ‘Do your homework’ is a common authoritative

phrase expressed by parents to their children. The Actor is realised by the word

‘your’, which refers to the family members. This thus suggests that the order was

given by Tun Dr Mahathir to fellow Malaysians in general. Most importantly, the

message that can be construed from the linguistic text is that Tun Dr Mahathir is

represented as a patriarchic leader who tried to instill the values of hardwork in

the Malaysian culture since Tun Dr Mahathir believes and constantly points out

the importance of hardwork as it is the only way to achieve success (Mohamad,

2011; Saimon, 2014).

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Similar to the visual messages, Tun Dr Mahathir is represented as an open-

minded leader, a leader who could spend his time answering questions from the

people and was never shy about using the latest technology and a leader who

encouraged others to work hard.

CONCLUSION

The findings of this paper revealed that the representation of Tun Dr Mahathir in

Lat’s editorial cartoon is of a leader who is open minded and willing to listen to

other views and opinions even if the views came from his subordinates.

Interestingly, Lat portrays Tun Dr Mahathir as a leader who kept abreast with the

advancement of information technology and his passion towards information

technology has led Malaysia towards the advancement of the internet technology,

and this can be seen from the development of the Multimedia Super Corridor

(MSC) during his premiership (Ismail and Saad, 2007). Furthermore, Tun Dr

Mahathir is represented as a leader who valued hardworking. Thus the

representations of Tun Dr Mahathir's leadership values potrayed in Lat’s editorial

cartoons eventually connote him as a role model for Malaysians, who abide by his

own motto, that is, leadership by examples.

Interestingly, the use of visual metaphors in delivering sensational issues

found in editorial cartoons requires further studies. Visual metaphors are found to

be able to present criticism and depictions of sensitive issues subtly with the

inclusion of humour. Most importantly, visual metaphors will lead to the

acceptance of the editorial cartoons.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Rohani Embong is a Master’s degree holder (Master of Philosophy) from

Language Academy, UTM. Her main research interests are Multimodality,

Systemic Functional Linguistics, Discourse Analysis as well as Linguistic and




647

Cultural Relativity. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in TESL (Teaching

English as a Second Language) from UTM.

Hanita Hassan is a Senior Lecturer at Language Academy, UTM and she obtained

her Ph.D in Language and Communication from Cardiff University. Her main

research areas are Multimodality, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Discourse and

Language of Tourism Communication. Currently, she is heading a FRGS project

on Tourism and Hospitality Communication.

Noor Aireen Ibrahim, Ph.D (Cardiff) is a Senior Lecturer at Language Academy,

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor Bahru, Malaysia. She is a Language

and Communication researcher with a particular interest in discourse driven

research especially in the areas of Health Communication, Professional

Communication and Media Communication.

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