“The Bitter laughter ”. When parody is a moral and affective priming in political persuasion (original) (raw)
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This exploratory research examines processes pertaining to how parody humor can influence perceptions of political figures in terms of credibility and, more broadly, general political trust. An online experiment was conducted in which select participants were exposed to a parody of former New York governor David Paterson. The results demonstrate that, in tandem with parody-induced sympathy, humor enjoyment can influence perceptions of a parody target's credibility and general political trust. In addition, a sympathetic predisposition is shown to positively predict responses of sympathy to a parody message. Furthermore, serial mediation analyses highlight how a sympathetic predisposition can indirectly influence various perceptions of a parody target, as sequentially mediated by responses of sympathy and enjoyment. In sum, this research is valuable for illuminating how individual differences and affective responses to political parody representations can affect various political perceptions.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013
The paper presents a model of parody, viewed as a distorted imitation of a text, discourse, behavior or trait of a person performed in order to elicit laughter. Focusing on the parody of politicians as a way to discredit them for persuasive purposes, a qualitative analysis is presented of the parody of a Mayor of Rome by an Italian comedian. The role of allusion in parody, and its consequent dependency on culturally shared knowledge are highlighted, and the function of ridicule as a form of moralistic aggression is stressed. Finally a first flash of a procedure for the construction of a parody machine is provided, based on the cognitive process of parody in humans.
Cognitive Processes and Multimodal Communication in the Parody of Politicians
2014
To single out the cognitive processes implied in the production of a parody, viewed as a distorted imitation of a text or behavior aimed at eliciting laughter and mocking someone, a corpus of parodies of politicians has been collected and multimodal communication analyzed through a devoted annotation scheme. Analysis allows to distinguish between surface and deep parodies, to single out the steps required for making a deep parody when the bare imitation of the Target is not enough for the Parodist’s satiric goals, and to see the intertwining of various modalities in conveying the crucial information of a parody: identification and characterization of a Target and of its flaws through allusion to some event.
International Journal of Communication, 2020
Exploring factors that contribute to the social transmission of debate parody, this study employs the conceptual lenses of affective disposition and discrete emotions. An online experiment was conducted within days of Saturday Night Live ’s original airing of its parody of the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Participants ( N = 472) were randomly assigned to view either the parody of the debate or a non-politics-related parody sketch. The debate parody was significantly more mirth and hope inducing when participants had an unfavorable disposition toward Trump; there was no difference in mirth and hope between the exposure conditions among those who had a more favorable disposition toward Trump. Furthermore, mirth and hope were demonstrated to predict willingness to share the humor. Both positive emotions served as significant mediating mechanisms for debate parody’s relationship with willingness to share, as amplified by one’s negative affective di...
Granthaalayah Publications and Printers, 2022
A politically conversant and sophisticated public is a major requisite for the development and functioning of a sound democracy. However, politics being an intricate subject doesn’t usually catch a fancy of an average man. This poses the demanding challenge of simplifying political discourse and making it more appealing to the larger population. Studies show that political comedy can qualify as one of its competent solutions due to the inherent power of humour to not just amuse but also facilitate attention-grabbing, information retention, and recall Fitzpatrick (2010). Also, the application of humour in serious matters like politics makes it less subject to scrutiny Feldman & Young (2008) further motivating people to express themselves freely without being intimidated by the fear of criticism. The realization of these advantages of political comedy led to an influx in research and discussions around the implications of the same. Hence, in light of the rising popularity of various formats of political humour in contemporary times, the present paper employs the technique of narrative literature review to identify various approaches through which the effects of political humour have been studied so far and explores whether or not it impacts the current political landscape. The investigation of the secondary sources yields that the recent scholarship on political humour effects is mostly centered around television satirical shows and myriad of its formats on the internet. The paper is arranged according to five central themes found by the careful examination of the available literature, which are; a) political humour as a mediator of political knowledge, b) implications on political efficacy and cynicism, c) political humour and political participation/ engagement, d) persuasive impacts of political humour, and e) factors influencing the effects of political humour.
Laughing at Politicians to Make Justice: The Moral Component of Humor in Appraising Politicians
SAGE Open, 2023
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.
Can Parody Change The World? - On the Philosophical and Political Aspects of Satirical Parody
Journal of Media, Cognition and Communication, 2019
Satire is to an increasing extent a part of the formation of our political consciousness. But what happens when political matters are expressed through satire? The purpose of this article is to investigate a satirical mode of expression, namely parody, in order to determine the contribution that parody lends to satire as well as making an assessment of the critical potential of parody itself. I argue that parody can be understood as an instance of Derridean deconstruction and that its critical potential lies in its ability to destabilize political assumptions that are taken for granted in our society.
2017
This article reports findings of a project that examined people’s attitudes toward politicians who participate in political satire and comedy programs. It surveyed 489 participants on their attitudes about satire’s political function and the politicians who play along or satirize themselves on those programs. The politicians’ own communication skills were found to be important, but the key to their success was also related to factors such as the format of the performance, the type of humor used, the status of the satire program in broader political discourse, and the role of the satirist as either facilitator or combatant. It was found that satire is a complex practice that can endorse as it criticizes and create sympathy as it ridicules.
From Funny Features to Entertaining Effects: Connecting Approaches to Political Comedy
This article offers points of intersection and difference across communication research on political comedy. Based on our findings, we argue that political comedy scholarship can be usefully divided into two areas: (1) features and (2) effects. Under features, we find three overlapping but distinct areas of emphasis: political comedy's rhetorical devices and conventions, its ideological and ethical functions, and its contributions to public culture. Under effects, we construct another four areas, including knowledge and learning, attitudes and opinion, cynicism and engagement, and processing, understanding, and affinity. The essay provides an overview of studies on political comedy's features and effects, before concluding with five pathways that can bridge these divides and bring conceptual clarity to future research.
This multi-experiment study builds upon extant political entertainment theory, testing whether satire type (horatian versus juvenalian) cues varying processing mechanisms (message discounting versus resource allocation), and if consequential differences to argument scrutiny levels or message persuasiveness result. Using novel stimuli (e.g., animated cartoons, study one) and real-world late-night political satire (The Daily Show and The Colbert Report , study two), results suggest that satire type was a key antecedent in political humor message processing. Additionally, the varying mechanisms had differential effects on political argument scrutiny levels and message persuasiveness