A Semiotic Approach to the Analysis of Jordanian Cartoons and Memes on COVID-19

This study examines the impact of COVID-19 on Jordanians’ beliefs, perceptions, and practices. The selected 26 caricatures and memes were analyzed in terms of their denotative, connotative, and semiotic resources and discussed in light of Barthes’ semiotic theory. The analysis reveals that such cartoonic representations constitute a type of social discourse that reveals several social, health, economic, and political issues on digital platforms and warns people about the negative consequences of this pandemic and how to cope with it. These issues are life and economic disruption, people’s bad psychological state, the unfair hold of the COVID-19 vaccine diffusion, and the world’s fiasco in handling the pandemic. The cartoons and memes also represent effectively, with the help of particular linguistic techniques (i.e., metaphors, intertextuality, and ironic, sarcastic expressions), people’s thoughts and beliefs, real situations, events, personalities, and identities, as well as the whole world, by humorously demonstrating critically shared global issues.