Cyber-Humour: The End of Humour as We Know It?
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Further Information:
Date
23 March 2006
Speakers:
Limor Shifman, Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute
Description:
This talk examines one of the most prominent manifestations of humorous communication in the present era: Internet-based humour. Two questions are addressed: (a) to what extent does the Internet function as a mediator of traditional humorous forms and topics, and to what extent does it facilitate new humorous forms and topics? (b) how do the new forms and topics of online humour relate to fundamental characteristics of the Internet such as interactivity, multimedia and global reach? The discussion is based on content analysis of humorous texts from salient humour-oriented websites. The talk aims to detect and define the new forms and topics of cyber-humour, and also to portray some of their possible social and cultural implications.
The talk is associated with the OII project: Cyber-humour: the end of humour as we know it?
Keywords:
Introduction by Bill Dutton. Humour as unique key to understanding of cultures and societies, online humour overlooked by academics, defining the field and raising questions: what is cyberhumour? analysis from communications perspectives: senders and receivers, message and medium, what are implications of internet as new medium? humour theory: superiority, relief, incongruity. The Jokingsphere. Division between globally and locally oriented topics. Analysis of form: communication morphologies and humour types. Internet as new medium, defining features: multimedia, interactivity, global reach. Balance between visual and verbal? Methods: content analysis of viral email and humour websites. Coding variables: topic, incongruity, butt, communication morphology, language, type. Communication morphologies: images dominate over verbal forms. Is the Internet a generator of new types of humour? prominence of the 'funny' home video. Bottom up and commercial forces on Internet. Defining new humour types. Interactivity and the tension between customised and individual messages. Phaniphotos and maniphotos, commodification of celebrities, empowering the ordinary individual, status markers, postmodernism, phanimation, celebrity soundboards, powerpoint humour. 'Battle of the sexes' and animal and ethnic humour. Internet: carrier of old and generator of new humour types. Multimedia: visual triumph. Global reach: the global triumph.
Duration
50 mins