South Africa, humor and transgression: the representation of Jacob Zuma in the line of Zapiro

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze the imagery representation of Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa since 2009. With a controversial personal life, the leader builds cases against the press. The cartoon's discourse, as we know, is a feature that has been widely used to cause embarrassment in public figures notorious, often putting in check the credibility of prominent people. From cartoons Jonathan Shapiro, known by the pseudonym Zapiro, we undertook a discourse analysis, based mainly on image, in order to see how the charges related to deconstruct the official president of South Africa. To discuss the issue South African authors were used Carlin (2009), Magnoli (1998) and Marinovich and Silva (2003). Regarding the cartoons and its political significance, character of contestation, we highlight the contributions of Romualdo (2002) and Teixeira (2005). As research methods were used cartoon's discourse analysis and historical research and literature. In this specific corpus, we can reach more comprehensive reviews about the contemporary politics of South Africa, which makes transit work in the territories of communication and history.