Rhetorical analysis
When Gary Varvel of the Indianapolis star made this cartoon in May 2009, it was on the heels of much publicized scrutiny from other world leaders, the controversy of testing nuclear weapons when told not to. The cartoon is showing the North Korean leader sitting in an old room with a car battery charging his computer, and old camping lights illuminating the room, while he is blogging on twitter, telling all about testing nukes. Down the side of the twitter page shows all his friends online, Al-Qaida, Iran nuke maniacs, the cave dweller (bin laden ha-ha) and the Taliban saying how much of fans they are that North Korea is doing this.
I feel that the intended audience for this cartoon is people of the news, what I mean by that is people who are strongly interested by the daily and world news. The cartoon shows Kim Jung (N Korean leader) telling the World Wide Web that he is testing nuclear war heads, and all the “bad people” of the world are commenting on Kim Jung’s status. Showing the world what the North Korean leader is doing I find so farfetched with this cartoon because we as the public really have no idea what is going on in North Korea. The public just feeds off the news and TV and will listen to whatever someone with half a brain on the television has to say. The purpose of this cartoon “I” believe is targeting the public saying why North Korea would openly admit to testing and having weapons of mass destruction when it is illegal among the world council. The news can talk about almost anything they want the public to hear, because they know if the news says it, it’s got to be right. To persuade one person who is not listening is a lot harder then persuading a whole country that barely listens.