Political Comedy as Fuel for Populist Rhetoric?

In popular culture, politics are frequently framed with negative stereotypes, and there is some overlap between the anti-establishment rhetoric of political humor and populist challengers. This article probes similarities shared by politicians as presented in the television comedies Eichwald MdB (about a backbencher in the Bundestag) and Ellerbeck (about a kindergarten teacher turned mayor) and supporters of the (right-)populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD). The analysis of the storylines uncovers representations of self-serving and incompetent politicians that align with the fundamental critique expressed by the AfD. However, the negative depictions in the shows are interwoven with positive elements that speak to a responsiveness of democratic institutions. The two case studies help us better understand the specific form of German political satire produced by a public broadcaster and how satirical entertainment oscillates between negativity and meaningful critique of political power.

“MISS RONA IS REALLY CLAPPING THE WHITE SUPREMACISTS”: BLACK TWITTER'S POLITICAL HUMOR IN COVID-19 TIMES

As has been widely reported, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately sickened and killed Black Americans. At the same time, however, there is a significant body of conversation on Black Twitter that jokes about the pandemic. This includes tweets that nickname the pandemic as "Miss Rona,” as in “god i need a drink so bad, miss rona i promise i will be good.” Through an analysis of tweets using the “Miss Rona” nickname, we examine how Black Twitter humor serves as a site of political critique of both public policy failures and the Trump administration more broadly, with users leveraging practices like Signifyin’, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and wordplay to resist legibility by outsiders as they orient toward their own community. Black humor is political commentary that resonates with the Black community because the tweets address or refer to Black trauma during the pandemic: dealing with continued racial violence, white supremacist ideology, and medical disparities based on race. The tweets are also expressions of Black Twitter catharsis (joy despite pain) through witty one-sided Twitter banters that skillfully and playfully engage with several facets of the social and political climate. We consider how these conversations go beyond laughing to keep from crying to coded political statements and cultural alliance, and argue that Black Twitter’s jokes about the collective trauma of COVID-19 is a resource for online camaraderie, cultural critique, and community affiliation.

Means of informal communication in political cartoons

This article attempts to analyze means of communication such as euphemisms and dysphemisms in a political cartoon. Free expression of personal and public opinion, political humor and political cartoon became an important part of the information sphere. This makes the genre of political cartoon more relevant than ever. The cartoon consists of verbal and visual components, which make the choice of communication tools in the text especially difficult. This determined the problem of our study. We have analyzed political cartoons published in the American media. Using the method of content analysis, we selected 174 euphemisms and dysphemisms, which we divided into lexical-semantic categories. As a result, euphemisms are used frequently in political cartoon than dysphemisms, which, is caused by the genre specificity, thus, the ironical effect is achieved by the contrast between the verbal and visual components.

Are Political Attacks a Laughing Matter? Three Experiments on Political Humor and the Effectiveness of Negative Campaigning

Research on the effectiveness of negative campaigning offers mixed results. Negative messages can sometimes work to depress candidate evaluations, but they can also backfire against the attacker. In this article, we examine how humor can help mitigate the unintended effects of negative campaigning using data from three experimental studies in the United States and the Netherlands. Our results show that (1) political attacks combined with “other-deprecatory humor” (i.e., jokes against the opponents) are less likely to backfire against the attacker and can even increase positive evaluations of this latter—especially when the attack is perceived as amusing. At the same time and contrary to what we expected, (2) humor does not blunt the attack: humorous attacks are not less effective against the target than serious attacks. All in all, these results suggest that humor can be a good strategy for political attacks: jokes reduce harmful backlash effects against the attacker, and humoros attacks remain just as effective as humorless ones. When in doubt, be funny. All data and materials are openly available for replication.

IMPLIKATUR DALAM BUKU HUMOR POLITIK INDONESIA KARYA ZAENUDDIN H.M (IMPLICATURES IN INDONESIAN POLITICAL HUMOR BY ZAENUDDIN H.M)

Implicatures in Indonesian Political Humor by Zaenuddin HM. This research is intended to describe conventional and conversational implicatures which contained in Zanenuddin’s works. The researcher use descriptive method and the approach which is used by the researcher is qualitative research as a pragmatic study. The research data and data source are taken from Zaenuddin’s works entitled ‘Humor Politik Indonesia’. Data collection method used are listening and documentation method . Instrument which is used in this research is researcher herself and she uses water analysis method to analyze the data research. According to the results of data analysis, the researcher founds implicatures in Zanenuddin’s works. Conventional and conversational implicatures found in every utterances with functions like, a. wishing, b. ordering, and c. mocking or teasing function. Key words: implicature, humor, political, Zaenuddin Abstrak Implikatur dalam Buku Wacana Humor Politik Indonesia karya Zaenuddin HM: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan wujud implikatur percakapan dan wujud implikatur konvensional yang terdapat dalam buku karya Zaenuddin tersebut. Pendekatan yang digunakan oleh peneliti adalah pendekatan kualitatif, yang merupakan jenis penelitian pragmatik. Metode yang digunakan adalah metode deskriptif. Data dan sumber data yang bersumber dari buku humor politik karya Zaenuddin. Teknik yang digunakan ialah metode dokumentasi dan simak. Instrumen dalam penelitian ini adalah diri sendiri. Teknis analisis menggunakan model air Miles dan Huberman (2014:18). Hasil analisis menemukan wujud implikatur dalam buku humor politik karya Zaenuddin adalah: menemukan wujud implikatur percakapan dan implikatur konvensional yang dalam setiap tuturan terdapat juga fungsi, fungsinya yaitu sebagai berikut a) fungsi mengharap, b) fungsi memerintah, c) fungsi menyindir, dan d) fungsi mengkritik. Kata-kata kunci: implikatur, humor, politik, Zaenuddin

Investigating Visual Content Shared over Twitter during the 2019 EU Parliamentary Election Campaign

Political communication increasingly takes on visual forms. Yet, despite their ubiquity in everyday communication and digital campaigning, the use of these visuals remains critically understudied. In this article, we investigate the formats and modes of visual content deployed by Twitter users over a two-week period leading up to the 2019 EU Parliamentary elections and across two publics: those discussing the election at large and those discussing the more contentious issue of EU membership. Conducting a multilingual, cross-comparative content and thematic analysis of a sample of 1,097 images, we find that<em>: </em>(1) Visuals originating from traditional political actors prevailed among both Twitter discourses; (2) users shared substantial amounts of anti-EU, populist and, to a lesser extent, extremist images, though this content remained largely disjointed from the mainstream public debate; and (3) political humor emerged as a vector for anti-establishment and Eurosceptic themes, especially in discussions critical of the European project. We discuss the implications of our findings for the study of visual political communication and social media manipulation.