Visual discourse on territorial development and political identities in socialist Romania, in comics for pioneers

Abstract

This research aims to reveal the social and cultural construction of space and the political identities of social classes in the Romanian socialist society (1948-1989), using the educational narratives of the comics in a pioneers’ magazine – Cutezătorii [The Daring Ones], published between 1967 and 1989. Using visual and discourse analysis, I show how propaganda functioned in comics about work and socialist progress. Results show that text and drawings in comics are forms of spatial and identity representation, contributing to the creation of the new or socialist space narrative, forging identities and imagined communities. I conclude that the discourse of the comics produces ideological spatial representations, it assesses characters, it establishes their morality or lack of it, it points out which is the normal or abnormal stance in a certain situation.