Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Political Caricatures on Telegram Reflecting the US–Israel–Iran Conflict (March 2026)

Abstract

This paper examines the role of political caricatures in digital communications in the US-Israel-Iran conflict of March 2026 using the framework of Multimodal Discourse Analysis. The study aims to analyze how the combination of visual and textual elements in these caricatures conveys ideological positions. Nine caricatures gathered from the Telegram platform "Iran in Arabic," are analyzed due to Kress and van Leeuwen's (1996) as a Multimodal Discourse Analysis. The findings indicate that the caricatures, through their humorous and exaggerated details, engage the audience with critical political messages of military strategies, foreign intervention, and media influence. The inclusion of both Arabic and English texts enables the caricatures to target various audiences, with a sense of context and a relevance of the critique to local as well as international audiences.