What is Caricature

This chapter focuses on the Nigerian media representations of Donald Trump's controversial policies, statements and style of government. It specifically examines Nigerian caricaturists' criticism of these aspects of American politics through a semiotic analysis of six editorial cartoons penned by Boglo G. and published in the Nigerian online magazine Nasoweseeam, from 2016 to 2018. In the light of the semiotic analysis conducted in the study, the chapter argues that Nigerian political cartoonists have continuously given a remarkable attention to U.S. politics (notably Trump's presidency), particularly exploring the angle of U.S. policies' impact on Nigeria(ns). Their cartoons have been tapping into both universal myths and local idiosyncrasies to represent the Trump administration in particular, and the American nation as a whole. Such a representation has mostly been negative. Icons, indexes and symbols have thus, most often been mobilized in their cartoons to associate Trump, Trumpism and/or America as a whole with such negativities as racism, Islamophobia, Nazism, xenophobia and authoritarianism, among others.