ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the use of visual images, particularly political cartoons, as a propaganda vehicle for creating sympathy and support abroad for the ideological perspectives of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It examines whether indeed the Islamic cartoonists utilize the same “weapons” and sources of inspiration, and analyzes how universally comprehensible their images are. The sociological, historical, and communicative analyses of cartooning and caricature are useful in revealing the culture that produces images, the symbolic resources available within a culture, and the potential meaning of such symbols within specific sociopolitical environments. Such studies reveal ethnocentric or ideological biases in the depiction of events, issues, and personalities by indigenous cartoonists as in depictions of Ayatollah Khomeini by US cartoonists or in the presentation of US involvement in the Middle East by Soviet caricaturists. The United States is depicted in 150 images—more than four times the number of those relating to the Soviet Union.
