Political Cartoons Illustrations or comic strips containing a political or social message that relates to current events

Satire Uses humor to lower something or someone in the reader’s or viewer’s estimation. It is not mean spirited and its point is not to harm. It exposes human folly to make room for improvement.

Carlos Latuff [Copyrighted free use], via Wikimedia Commons

Caricature Exaggerates one or more features of a person or thing. It attempts to say something about the person or thing’s character, beliefs, actions or significance.

This image, from Michigan State University Digital Archive is in the public domain. See MSU copyright policy at http://museum.msu.edu/?q=node/231  

Symbolism Represents something else by using an object to stand for an idea. Peace-dove United States-Uncle Sam, Eagle, Stars and stripes Democrats-donkey Republicans-elephant

Notes Note: Central Press Association, reprinted in The American Monthly Review of Reviews, May 1919, p.463 Creator Bushnell, E.A., d. 1939 Bushnell, E.A., Central Press Association, reprinted in The American Monthly Review of Reviews, May 1919, p.463 The Ohio State University Libraries believe this image is in the public domain. See link below. https://library.osu.edu/ims/files/g733bc30d#.V9b9n4WcF7c

Metaphor Uses an object to note a similarity to something else. For example, using a tiger to represent one nation.

By Carlos Latuff (http://sf. indymedia. org/news/2002/12/1555478 By Carlos Latuff (http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1555478.php) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Irony Expresses an idea through a contradiction between something’s literal meaning and the intended meaning.

By Rafaela Tasca and Carlos Latuff (http://www. indymedia. org By Rafaela Tasca and Carlos Latuff (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389381.html) [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

Sarcasm A form of irony. The element that turns irony into sarcasm is the appearance of mockery, or bitterness.

By Courtesy of the Center of Military History [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Stereotypes Works by taking a real or imagined trait of an individual to be true of the group to which the individual belongs. They express bias and can be unfair and harmful.

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Information from its description page there is shown below. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository. See link below. http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/395/39538.jpg.htm

Analogy Is a comparison between two unlike things that share some characteristics. By comparing a complex issue or situation with a more familiar one.

Carlos Latuff [Copyrighted free use or Copyrighted free use], via Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/2_war.png

Labeling Labels objects or people to make it clear what they stand for.

Politics by Zabou is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/