Political Satire Research Paper

Satire is defined as ‘A genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement,’ and thus plays a very important part in our society today. Satire does have the license to offend as in addressing difficult situations it helps carry out with our constitutional aims as it is a form of freedom of speech/expression, it provides a forum under which authority corruption can be uncovered and can be a mean to address otherwise politically difficult situations using humour. Satire can be used to draw attention to small issues needing attention by the public and

Without Freedom of speech/expression in media, authority is given ungoverned power as they cannot be criticised by the public on their actions. A great example of this is in South Africa under the Apartheid regime when the government censored all political cartoons/ media publications criticising the government. The ban on political satire/ cartoons was particularly prominent after the 1976 Soweto uprising. This exempted the government from all public criticism as all satirical/political cartoons were banned and thus led to the continuation of the unwarranted reign of the ruthless party against which much of society was trying to speak. Satire/Political cartoons do have the licence to offend as sometimes the offense and judgement of the public is needed to keep authority figures under control or uncover authority

It is clear that many cartoons and satirical cartoons can offend authorities, the public, or groups in society with certain beliefs. Political cartoons can anger people and if those actions are acted upon satirical cartoons can be the fuel to the fire. However it must be remembered that offense is subjective and anyone could be offended by anything at any time (not just political cartoons) thus offense cannot be