The survey “Survey on Cartoons!” (25 February 2014; a convenience sample of 216 respondents) shows that the audience perceives the cartoon as an show that the audience perceives the cartoon as a clear and analytical commentary, but also as content that raises ethical concerns for a significant share of respondents, while its real effect on political attitudes remains limited.
Respondents rate Aleksandar Vučić as a public official predominantly negatively: the combined negative rating (negative + very negative) is 47.93%, while the combined positive rating (very positive + positive) is 33.18%.
A similar pattern appears for his conduct during the election campaign: 48.85% negative, 28.11% positive, with 15.67% neutral. When it comes to his role as a party official, the picture is milder: 40.56% positive, 28.11% negative, and as many as 15.21% have no opinion.
The cartoon itself receives a very high score for message clarity: 86.18% say the message is understandable “to a great extent.” Two thirds of respondents consider the cartoon analytical (64.52% “to a great extent”), while the assessment of truthfulness is more cautious: 56.22% believe it “to a great extent” describes the real situation, but 11.98% say “not at all.” The greatest divisions show up around ethics: 47.47% believe the message is not offensive “to a great extent,” but as many as 22.12% say there is no ethical basis at all (“not at all”), suggesting that part of the audience perceives the cartoon as exaggeration or targeting. At the same time, most do not see a legal issue: 69.12% believe the content is not contrary to the law.
When the effect of the cartoon on attitudes is measured, it is clear that it mostly does not change people’s minds. Regarding Vučić, the largest share say it “had no impact” (46.54%), while 31.80% state that it only strengthened their existing view. Positive change is minimal (4.60% in total), while negative change is somewhat higher (11.98% in total). By contrast, the cartoon has a more favourable effect on perceptions of the author: regarding Marko Somborac, 18.89% say it completely changed their view in a positive direction, and 10.14% partly positively—29.03% positive shift in total, alongside 29.03% who say it strengthened their view.
The sample consists of respondents who generally follow politics (27.65% intensively and 54.38% partly), slightly more men (54.38%), with a median age of 30; the most represented groups are pupils/students (24.88%) and the unemployed (23.04%).
Methodological note: this was an online survey, so the results reflect the views of participants rather than a representative sample of the population.