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"Politicians Humor."
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Quite enough of Calvin Trillin : forty years of funny stuff
A collection of Trillin's writings, arranged roughly by category.
Book
Laughing at Politicians to Make Justice: The Moral Component of Humor in Appraising Politicians
A recent line of research in the field of humor has proposed the existence of two morally based comic styles. One of them, corrective humor (or satire), seeks to ridicule and mock to establish justice. In contrast, benevolent humor attempts to correct deviances using humor in a friendly manner understanding human imperfections. Considering their focus on correcting what is perceived as morally wrong, in this study we seek to examine how these styles can affect the evaluation that is made of politicians after being exposed to humor that attacks them. To achieve this, we conducted an experiment in which three groups had to evaluate two politicians after being exposed to different stimuli (memes that ridiculed them, images with the same content without its humorous content, or no exposure; total n = 160). Our results demonstrate that it is corrective humor and not benevolent humor that influences the evaluation and that it does so positively; people with higher scores in corrective humor have a better evaluation of politicians after seeing memes with anti-politician content. We discuss possible explanations for this finding and implications for political psychology and humor studies.
Journal Article
Let me grow old and senile in peace: Norwegian newspaper accounts of voice and agency with dementia
This study analyses the remaking of dementia as a social and cultural phenomenon in the public media discourse in a welfare state Norway. A content analysis was carried out of articles on dementia published in Norwegian paper media from 1995 to 2015. The study combined the tools from quantitative corpus analyses and qualitative critical discourse analyses, making it possible to detect and interpret diachronic changes in the dementia discourse. Although the main focus in Norwegian dementia discourse has changed from the disease to the personhood, the agents defining what it means to live well with dementia continued to be predominantly institutional: non-governmental organisations, municipalities, health-care institutions and politicians. An analysis of the uses of the politically incorrect Norwegian term for dementia, ‘senility’, revealed that this term offered an alternative to the institutionalised dementia discourse and functioned as an unconventional and therapeutic-free space where older people and persons with dementia could use humour to subvert these norms and power relations.
Journal Article
Trusted puppets, tarnished politicians: Humor and cynicism in Berlusconi's Italy
How does humor serve political leaders widely seen as inept? How does political satire shift when a country's own prime minister is both media mogul and object of ridicule? I examine humor of and about Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and look at the country's top news parody program, especially its mascot: a big, red puppet named Gabibbo, who is praised as a \"civil defender.\" I argue that Berlusconi's own humor forges ties to an Italian citizenry habituated in the 1980s to political spectacle—the carefully staged and sensational exhibitionism of national politics—and, subsequently, to the media saturation of late-liberal politics. I show how political spectacle gave way to a cynicism capable of simultaneously propelling Berlusconi's peculiar popularity and transforming puppets into truth-tellers.
Journal Article
Mainstreaming and Weaponizing Satire in Nigerian Journalism Practice
Satire has gained increased scholarly traction across journalism and related fields. The genre increases the entertainment value of journalism and broadens its appeal. Satirical news also serves as a catalyst to pique the curiosity of ordinarily disinterested audiences in news, particularly political news. However, there are some concerns emerging from the weaponization of satire in this contemporary period, which is characterised by the proliferation of fake news and misinformation. From the Nigerian context, there have been minimal empirical spotlights placed on satirical journalism. We employed semi-structured interviews to explore the views of Nigerian print satirical journalists and cartoonists. Our finding broadens scholarship in the evolving area of satirical journalism. It demonstrates how the mainstreaming and the weaponization of satire have changed the texture of satire in Nigerian journalism. Although ethical concerns are admitted, we argue that cartoonists and satirical journalists have a responsibility to adjust to the dynamic media ecology, where satire continuously provides insightful critique and entertaining commentaries.
Journal Article
Evaluations of appropriateness through impoliteness in political discourse reframed for entertainment purposes
This contribution takes a look at video-sharing platforms to highlight a popular entertainment format which consists in re-framing political discourse for the purposes of entertaining the audience and, at the same time, providing an evaluation of that discourse. Evaluations of political discourse uncover the role and importance imputed to it by those who are outside of the political system, but who are directly impacted by it, that is, the people. A sample of French-language data, collected from YouTube, is examined for the categories of evaluation which are used by the authors, which are conjectured to represent the ideas ordinary citizens have about political discourse. Reframing political discourse carries these evaluations through offensive language and humor. Teasing out the relevant parameters of evaluation can provide a basis for understanding how regular citizens gauge political discourse. Appropriateness appears to be an important evaluation criterion pertaining to the characteristics of political discourse, occurring in a particular context.
Journal Article
The Aesthetics of Dehumanization
Beginning in the early 2010s, Italy has seen a new wave of popularization of far-right populist forces in institutional political contexts. Parties such as the Lega (League) and Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) have engaged in campaigns of legitimation of ideologies based on ethnonationalist assumptions and racial exclusion that have become increasingly normalized within the public debate. This article analyzes the implementation of dehumanizing aesthetics in the propaganda of today’s Italian far-right movements as applied to the discrimination of Roma minorities. Informed by old patterns of prejudice, the general storytelling around Roma in Italy is framed within fearful imaginaries of threat exploited by far-right groups to legitimize racist discourses and promote exclusionary policy agendas. The discussion considers the ability of far-right movements to use popular social media platforms for the diffusion of dehumanizing narratives that attempt to influence people’s perception of Roma in public discourse. This article dissects some of the main elements informing anti-Roma narratives in the Italian political scene by considering a selection of case studies drawn from Facebook and Twitter profiles of institutional Italian far-right leaders. The discussion explores the connection between online and offline dimensions by examining the events at Torre Maura, a suburban borough of Rome that in 2019 saw violent anti-Roma protests led by neofascist fringe groups. This example is deemed interesting for the analysis of the potential of far-right aesthetics to transcend the online dimension and turn a general climate of fear, hate, and social tension into offline actions and behaviors.
Journal Article
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.
Journal Article
PraCimaDeles: o humor na construgao da identidade politica de Guilherme Boulos
A relação entre humor e política é antiga e ganhou novos contornos com o surgimento da internet. Neste estudo, são analisadas postagens publicadas entre 2018 e 2023, do perfil do Instagram de Guilherme Boulos, emergente liderança da esquerda brasileira. Discussões sobre a política, o humor e o papel desse recurso na construção de fronteiras simbólicas entre pessoas e grupos são o pano de fundo teórico do trabalho, que tem como objetivo principal compreender o papel do humor na construção da identidade política de Boulos. Em termos metodológicos, são feitas análises descritivas das mensagens do corpus (n = 13 321), combinadas a observações qualitativas. As postagens foram verificadas para distinguir as que tinham elementos de humor ou não. No caso das primeiras, houve a categorizações das postagens pelo estilo. Entre outros resultados, o trabalho indica o uso do humor em 15,6 % das postagens, sendo que o estilo adotado é majoritariamente “agressivo”, ou seja, dirigido a diferentes alvos, com destaque para o ex-presidente Jair Bolsonaro. Também se observa que as mensagens com humor têm maior alcance e reações. De modo mais geral, a identidade que o humor ajuda a construir, no caso de Boulos, é a de um político combativo, contra políticas e agendas conservadoras, e que possui dimensões descontraídas e relacionadas ao cotidiano do cidadão comum.
Journal Article