Engaging in a newspaper cartoon thematic analysis to understand the socioeconomic, health, political, and environmental impact of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka

Introduction: Newspaper cartoons are viewed as an effective means of communicating important social concerns.   Method:An exploratory content analysis of newspaper cartoons was done during the COVID-19 outbreak in Sri Lanka . Cartoons from eight daily online newspapers published from 15th of March to 15th of April 2020 were included. “corona”, “COVID-19”, or “Sri Lanka” were used as keywords. Thematic analysis was used to identify the different perspectives of cartoons. Results: Background of COVID-19 pandemic, health, social, economic, political, and environmental aspects emerged within a sample of 87 cartoons. Thirteen common themes were identified as COVID-19 as a pandemic, COVID-19 has become a crisis for Sri Lanka, prevention is the priority, knowledge deficit leads to breaking health advice, efforts to control virus outbreak, shifting socio-cultural practices, effects of lockdown, rich man’s virus – poor suffer the most bringing the global economy to its knee, coronavirus is driving the black market for essential stuff, seeking strategies to hold the election, applying health precautions in election activities and other political involvements. Conclusion: Cartoons were effectively used to give broad health and other messages to the public during the COVID-19 outbreak in Sri Lanka. Newspaper cartoons can be used as an effective mode of disseminating information during a crisis.