من طرف miucomp8 الإثنين نوفمبر 01, 2010 1:36 pmDrug addiction
Along with the development the world is making one day after another, there appear many negative human tendencies that shape the other side of the coin. One of these tendencies comes in the form of drug addiction. Drug addiction is the condition resulting from the repeated consumption of a drug which leads to the slowed ability to respond to naturally rewarding stimuli. The media is known to play quite a significant role raising people’s awareness of such issues. One very smart media product that tackles serious situations in an ironical way is cartoons; the two cartoons under comparisons are just two examples. The peoples cartoon shows a man smoking seven cigarettes, five of them at the same time and there is a smoke getting out from his ears. There is another one is holding a syringe and he is sleeping from the effect of the drugs. The third one is mixing a drug powder before taking it. While in the other cartoon there is a man sitting in front of a table. There are many beer cans in front of him. He smells a drug and there is a syringe containing a drug to use it after finishing. Although both cartoons insinuate that drug addiction is spreading widely the peoples cartoon is more effective due to the smarter usage of persuasive techniques like irony, labeling and exaggeration.
Both cartoons use irony to draw the reader’s attention to shamelessness of drug addictions. Irony by definition is the difference between the way things are and the way things should be. In the peoples cartoon it shows a lot of people who are addicted to drug, how the government leaving them in this way without controlling them. These must not be in that way all of them look young, the way they are addicting show that they have no jobs and there no job opportunity. There is another man who is looking to them and he is surprised. He had to advice them to stop this addiction. The other cartoon shows the man addicted to both drugs and alcohols. How miserable he is? The ironic images portrayed in both cartoons send almost the same message that nowadays addiction has become the norm.
The cartoonist uses another effective technique which is exaggeration. Exaggeration is defined as overdoing physical characteristics of people or objects in order to make a point. In the peoples cartoon, there is a man who is smoking seven cigarettes, five of them at one time. there is a smoke coming out from his ears which shows us that he refuse to listen to the advices which are given to him. It also shows that how the drug and addiction are controlling him. The other man who is sitting in the ground his shoes are cut and his toe appears from it. This means that although he is poor, but he insists on drug addiction. In the other cartoon there are half circles around his head which shows us how the drug is affecting his mentality and there is a syringe beside him to inject the drug after finishing showing that he is not going easily to stop drug addiction.
Only the man cartoon has labeling. It uses the labeling in an effective way. Labeling is used by cartoonist, they label objects on people to make it clear exactly what they stand for. In the man cartoon the labeled beer shows us that he is addicted to alcohol. The powder in the table and the syringe clearly shows us that he is addicted to drug.
The both cartoons express the problem of drug addiction very clearly. This problem is spreading widely among our youth. This requires from the government and the authorities to put an end to this. They should catch the drug traders and send them to jail. In both cartoons, the signs of drug addiction appear clearly. But, the peoples cartoon succeeded in conveying the message more effectively due to the uses of irony and exaggeration.
