Drawings That Speak More Than Words. A Study On Digital Comics Journalism

Abstract

This thesis investigates the implications that the increasing popularization of new media formats such as digital comics have on traditional journalism in terms of reader involvement and the reproduction of inequality. The study provides a historical overview that contextualizes the connection between journalism and comics. This background explains the characteristics of digital comic journalism by using a postmodern approach that sustains that new media is a reinvention of past media formats. The study argues that digital comics are a good medium to report on hard-news because the information presented can be contextualized with drawings and appealing tools such as videos and animations. However, the research explores the risks of oversimplifying serious topics in order to attract the mainstream audience. The study claims that the popularization of converging media formats is challenging the role of journalists who are asked to carry out more tasks than ever before in order to build rich multimedia features. As this thesis claims, the role of the audience in digital comics also changes as its structure allows the readers to be more in control of their own reading experience compared to their paper counterparts. At the same time, users are now invited to constantly comment and share content which are conditions that have changed the traditional journalism paradigm. The analysis is guided through the description of a case study, Graphic Memories, a digital comic depicting the story of four female Ugandan ex-soldiers. The piece mixes illustrations with embedded multimedia resources. Although the story is grounded in Uganda, the project has been developed and consumed mostly by Western users. The research describes this case study using a postcolonial angle, based on the principle that digital spheres are reaffirming and reproducing postcolonial relationships.