Webcomics and the Revival of Carnival Humour: A Comparative Study of Islam Gawish and Carlos Latuff / Dina Muhammad Oleimy Halawa ; Randa Aboubakr

Thesis (Ph.D)-Cairo University - Faculty of Arts- Department of English Language and Literature

Bibliography: p. 243-250.

After Arab Spring revolutions, a remarkable move towards digital platforms has become a fact that can hardly be denied. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate how Facebook, as a digital space, contributes to creating a virtual carnivalesque atmosphere that transfers resistance from the borders of the real world to the open and free digital sphere. In this regard, the focus of this research is to present a reading of the webcomics posted by Brazilian webcartoonist Carlos Latuff and Egyptian webcartoonist Islam Gawish as manifestations of how their Facebook pages do not only succeed in creating a public sphere that relatively frees them from the constraints (i.e. space, place, and censorship) of real world, but it also focuses on the correlation between the new digi-public sphere—created by webcomics—and the novel trajectories it opens for the production of alternative discourse that challenges and questions the mainstream discourse of the official system. Through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of carnival, a reading of the webcartoonists’ work is provided to show how the carnivalesque moment, created by ordinary digital citizens, represents their collective sense of liberation from the hegemonic atmosphere of official system. This festive moment leads to the production of new versions of truth that stand vis-à-vis the imposed official truth. The analysis of webcomics does not only investigate how the two webcartoonists deliver their meanings through using visual and verbal languages, but it also includes the responses of their followers to show how they take part in creating the new unofficial truth.