Using caricatures in political humor as a tool of political communication: Analysis of poli̇ti̇cal caricatures drawn by Sali̇h Memecan in the 2014 Presidential Election process

The political mechanism can persist its existence as long as it can express itself, manage to convince the target group and gain legitimacy over them and continue its legitimacy. İt is able to perform all of this with political communication methods, techniques and tools. Caricatures -as a type of political humor which is one of these methods, techniques and tools- is used due to continue the hegomony of the goverment, discredit opposition party and find support for activities that are made by goverment, although it is used as a tool of opposition and critisism against the goverment in general. In this study, caricatures are analyzed about the Presidential election of 10 August 2014 which published by Bizimcity and drawn by Salih Memecan. At the first part of out study, general informations related to the Basic Communication Models has been given after the Politics and Communication concepts. The informations has been given about history of the concept, its development at our country, its functions, updated methods and technics by explaining the Political Communication Concept. At the second part, Politic humour and caricature has been evaluated with details. By starting with the concept and type of the humour have been explained and the politic humour concept has been explained. And then the caricature concept, type of the concepts, historical development of the caricature concept at the out country and the world have been handled as terms. Last, the caricature has formulated as a communication style and the steps of the formula have been explained. At the third part and the last part, the analysis will be performed at the related part has explained with its purpose, scope and methods and the 23 of caricatures have been driven by salih memecan during the elimination of the President selection on 10th of August 2014 has been interpreted with the content analysis method by dividing 3 categories. Keywords: Politics, Political Communication, Political Humor, Cartoon, Presidential Election.