Trauma, Tension, And Turbulence In Websites' Editorial Political Cartoons: A Case Study Of Muhammad Zahoor

Modern societies everywhere, are becoming progressive and want to see development in every aspect of life. Same is the case with Pakistani society. It conceived the accomplishment of its ideals with PTI government whom they had elected with a heavy mandate but due to numerous sociopolitical and economic crises, the government could not abide by their aspirations due to which they became frustrated as a result of the unclear and uncertain policies of the government and hence became deviant. The present study, in the form of 4editorial political cartoons selected through purposive and simple random sampling techniques from the former data of MPhil thesis (Mussarat Jabeen, 2022), is an attempt to uncover the flux, annoyance, and frustration of Pakistani public, caused by the demagogic concerns of the ruling party. Theory of 'Deviance' i.e.,1890 anomie theory of Émile Durkheim (cited in Jón Bernburg, 2019) and 1960 anomie theory of Robert Merton (cited in "Theories of Deviance", n.d.)provided the necessary theoretical framework for the current study. Catherine Belsey's (2005) model of textual analysis was used for the purpose of analysis and interpretation of cartoons data. It was found that different factors like foreign debts, inflation, taxes, soaring oil prices, pandemics, terrorism, and false promises of the government do have a strong impact on the mindset of the Pakistani public. It was concluded that Muhammad Zahoorin his cartoons, has given a very true and realistic depiction to the status quo in Pakistan and that public's deviant behavior is the result of their confused position in such a status quo.