Communicating Political Humor in the Media

The development of humor in Japanese, politicized, graphic art has a long and illustrious history ranging from early manifestations of fûshiga (satirical drawings) via jiji manga (Western style cartoons) to the modern manga media. Nowadays, Japanese manga culture manifests itself as a powerful tool across the political divide to shape domestic as well as global perception of the nation. While the open denigration of politics via pop-cultural representations is generally regarded as a cultural taboo in Japanese society, the visual medium of manga provides a powerful counter-hegemonic space where discontent, Criticism, and satire can be expressed more freely than via conventional media. This chapter will not only illustrate how expressions of political satire and humor reflect changes in Japanese cultural attitudes and the society’s status quo, but also how graphic artists, satirists, and cartoonists, have helped to shape popular attitudes about landmark historical events, thereby actively engaging in the political decision-making process. The chapter further examines how today’s brand of graphic political humor utilized Japan’s ideogrammatic culture to defamiliarize political norms and thereby might be more influential than ever in manipulating attitudes towards the Japanese nation in the global political amphitheater.

This chapter delves into political humor during the presidential periods of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Joko Widodo in Indonesia. By employing a critical discourse analysis approach, the chapter explores the portrayal of these two presidents through the lens of political cartoons, shedding light on the power of humor as a form of social commentary and political critique. Based on a selected collection of political cartoons from the prominent Indonesian publication Kontan, the chapter analyzes how these cartoons depicted and satirized the personalities, policies, and governance of Yudhoyono and Widodo. The cartoons captured the essence of their respective leadership periods through caricatures, symbolism, and visual metaphors, offering insights into public sentiment, societal expectations, and critical narratives surrounding these presidents. The analysis reveals the distinct humor styles employed in portraying Yudhoyono and Widodo. For Yudhoyono, the cartoons often highlighted his leadership style, policies, and controversies, employing exaggerated features and witty captions to critique his governance. In contrast, the cartoons depicting Widodo emphasized his down-to-earth persona, tackling economic policies, corruption, and social issues with a satirical edge.

This chapter investigates representations of the Bolsonaro government in the cartoons of the influential and award-winning Brazilian cartoonist Laerte Coutinho. In the Brazilian case, political cartoons translate an important feature of the country's cultural tradition: humor. Brazilians value humor as a strategy to face the ills they confront in their daily relationships and in their socio-political coexistence. It is argued that through her cartoons, political humor was a form of denunciation and resistance to Bolsonaro’s anti-democratic and anti-human rights agenda. By denouncing and mocking government actions, the cartoons raised awareness of key national questions, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, electoral system and democracy, conservative values, the environment, etc., contributing to a critical view and stance towards the Bolsonaro administration. In the context of a government aligned with authoritarian postures, humor emerges as a cultural trait of Brazilians and as a space for political socialization committed to strategies of resistance and construction of a critical political culture in the country. Methodologically, we used Documental Image Analysis, both in its qualitative approach to understanding cartoons based on the influence of their context, place, and author, as in their strategy of a three stage investigation: pre-iconographic, iconographic and iconological.

This study elaborates on the characteristics of Turkish political humor through satirical magazines Bayan Yanı, Uykusuz and the Misvak platform. Magazines are examined for a thirteen month period to understand how cultural dynamics operate through political humor. Accordingly, cultural characteristics are incorporated as a supportive element to the narrative structures of Uykusuz covers, but also challenged. Political authority is criticized by adopting elements of black humor, concern, and despair as prominent themes. On the other hand, Bayan Yanı, a pro-feminist magazine, inspires readers with hope, prompting them to take action despite the recent decline in gender equality policies and the ongoing issue of violence against women, thus activating alternative editorial strategies that refer to a culture of struggle. Lastly, the pro-government platform Misvak’s cartoons are heavily based on populist dualities, seeking to construct an alternative historical narrative. Misvak instrumentalizes cultural characteristics in the process of a neo-conservatist, political Islamist, cultural hegemony project, undermining the genre potential of Islamic humor.

Humor and political culture have always gone hand in hand in contemporary Spain to the extent that the satirical press has not only been a faithful portraitist of political and social concerns, but also humor itself has managed to shape diverse political cultures throughout human history. For more than two centuries, Spain’s satirical press has served as a loudspeaker and reference for such transcendental issues as the Franco dictatorship, the democratic transition, territoriality, and anticlericalism. One of the most popular sections of the daily press in Spain is graphic humor. Some of the cartoonists have become individuals of prestige and relevance, as is the case of Antonio Fraguas i.e., Forges, who portrayed Spanish social and political reality over the past 50 years in such a way that politicians of all ideologies, journalists, and citizens, agree that Spain cannot be conceived without his cartoons. This paper aims to analyze the relationship between political culture and humor in a selection of cartoons by Forges in present-day Spain. For this purpose, considering the importance of the relationship between verbal and non-verbal communicative elements, this study is carried out following the Relevance Theory approach to multimodal texts.

This chapter examines the use of political humor in the communicative and discursive repertoire of the Australian far right. Specifically, this chapter critically analyzes the co-constitutive and mutually informing relationship between far right political humor and Australian culture. Existing research has demonstrated the effective use of humor and comedy in mainstreaming the far right and softening the exclusionary and ideological content of their messages. The purpose of this chapter then is to understand how far-right humor is articulated, shaped, and transformed by the cultural context in which it takes place. Australian culture is shaped by several factors, including its settler colonial reality, its strong multicultural legacy, its proximity to Asia, and cultural, social, and political ties to the United States and United Kingdom. Through a Critical Discourse Analysis and Thematic Analysis of far-right political humor, including memes and animations, this chapter will demonstrate how Australian far-right humor maintains a distinctly “Australian” lens. At the same time, this chapter will argue that far-right political humor works to shape culture by stretching the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior by cueing participants that it is acceptable to express contempt and hostility towards ridiculed out-groups.

Since the fall of communist rule in Poland in 1989, political imagery has diversified due to new media technologies and a variety of content providers abolishing a monopoly over official representations of Polish governance and politics. Parallel to this, traditional cabaret and political satire moved from club stages and festivals to television stations and streaming platforms. In this study, we trace the evolution of televised satire through three case studies of popular televised parody programs. We explore how historical references are recontextualized for comic effect, and how stereotypes are reproduced to satirize ruling elites or expose personal vices and incompetence. However, rather than explaining the instantiations of satire in specific episodes, we focus on the narrative devices and construction of characters to capture the cumulative functions of humor. We show how the analyzed productions draw on cultural schemes and metaphors of governance, power, and partisan politics, especially harshly ridiculing autocracy and corruption. The study exposes the ambivalence of political satire: its role in cultivating citizenship by demystifying the processes behind the exercise of power on the one hand, and in diminishing trust in politicians and depoliticizing the citizens on the other hand.

Despite its recent formal steps taken to ensure more gender equality, Montenegro still has a rather patriarchal culture. A United Nations Development Program (UNDP) supported study (2021) found that 90% of Montenegrin female politicians have experienced discrimination due to their gender, and 70% have experienced violence during their political work. Against such a background, this study explores sexist humor targeting female Montenegrin politicians in public Facebook comments. Comments that elicited humorous reactions were considered humorous, whereas those that reduced female politicians to sexual objects, presented them as caricatures conforming to traditional gender roles in Montenegrin society, or played on the stereotype of women's inferiority, were regarded as sexist. Although a significant share of the commentary was sexist, most often such comments were not recognized as humorous. In those that were recognized as humorous, the most prevalent themes included women's bodies and appearance, the sexual objectification of female politicians, personality flaws stereotypically associated with women (such as lacking intelligence or being evil), and encouraging women to prioritize family over politics.

In order to be incongruously informative, safely aggressive, and provide psychological relief, political discourse relies considerably on humor. Whereas political humor outwardly looks to elicit laughter in a culture-bound context, it also strives to cast judgment on its targets. Attitudinal markers are among the linguistic techniques used to show how religious, economic, and historical events shape political humor and consequently judge politicians effectively. Despite the many functions attitudinal markers can play in humor, there aren’t many studies that address the role of these markers in presenting their targets and the socio-political considerations that affect them in evaluating their targets. This chapter analyzes a corpus of Iranian political humor distributed through social networks, in order to identify how the targets or the stereotypical victims are culturally addressed in this context. Through the Appraisal Model, the study attempts to further our knowledge regarding how social status, economic conditions, and religious views form political humor within the Iranian socio-political context. The study is expected to reveal how attitudes are presented in sets of context-bound, target-value patterns. Finally, we show that the closed socio-political context affects the selection of the targets and the tone of the humor.

Political humor, foremost a linguistic phenomenon, plays a key role in how we perceive politics. It resides in research literature due to its unique obligation to sensitize audiences while entertaining. It deserves more attention because it will become pervasive, if not already so. This chapter covers staged comedic acts with a Malaysian framing, performed by local comedians and accessible via YouTube. The cultural characteristics of a country, together with its legal expectations, normally govern the flavor of its humor and I have therefore included these aspects in my discussions. The essence of culture here is the localized concept of being polite, civilized, and cultured [berbudi bahasa], the notion of maintaining/saving face [menjaga air muka], and Malaysia’s home-grown brand of English—Manglish. The works of Douglas Lim and Jason Leong (released in 2021) were used for analysis. Referring to Brown and Levinson's (Politeness: Some universals in language usage. The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1987) framework on politeness, the off-record and negative politeness strategies prevail on the whole with respect to Lim’s parody, while Leong’s jests exhibit the qualities of bald on record and negative politeness. None of the analyzed contents can be construed as ingratiating, but in both cases restraint is observed (as is Manglish use). Directions for future research are suggested.

It is often suggested that the Japanese do not have a sense of humor. Seriousness is regarded as one of the most important elements of success in society. Yet, through its long history, Japan has developed a culture that enjoys laughter, reflected in traditional drama and literature. Senryû, satirical and humorous verses that deal with common people in everyday situations, is one of the expressions of this tradition. This chapter focuses on senryû verses as an exemplar of humor in Japan. It examines senryû verses contributed by general readers as they were published in the opinion and commentary pages of two national dailies, Yomiuri and Asahi, between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023. The chapter reveals that 1,623 of the total 3,443 verses that were published then focused on political issues, processes, and decisionmakers. The ensuing discussion details distinguishing features of senryû as a vehicle revealing public sentiments towards political institutions and leaders, policy initiative and decisions, and the society as a whole—using on the one hand such rhetorical devices as satire, irony, and ridicule, and on the other hand expressions of optimism, hopes, and empathy.

This chapter explores “la grieta” in Argentine society, the deep and irreconcilable division, primarily between Kirchneristas and Anti-Kirchneristas, that fragments and polarizes the nation. It significantly shapes political, social, cultural, and even personal relationships in the nation. Introduced by Jorge Lanata during the 2013 Martin Fierro Award Ceremony, la grieta extends beyond politics, impacting friendships, families, and workplaces. Argentina’s main newspapers align themselves with different sides of la grieta, made evident in their satirical approaches in political columns and editorial cartoons. Página 12 takes a progressive stance, La Nación leans conservative, and Clarín leans center-right. These newspapers reinforce existing beliefs, deepening the ideological and political divide. Selected texts like “Life begins at 30: The beautiful Página” (Página 12), “Cristina vs. Alberto: Call the firefighters!” (La Nación), and “Let the rift not wane” (Clarín) shed light on how satirists portray la grieta as a problematic phenomenon. Political satire both reflects and critiques the polarizing aspect of the division in Argentine society. This analysis provides perspectives on the role of satire in addressing societal wrongs within the context of la grieta in Argentina. Understanding the impact of this division can provide deeper insights into the social, cultural, and political dynamics of Argentine society.

The present anthology of studies in political humor offers a rich buffet of research methodologies. However, they only scratch the surface of the complexities involved in examining the topic. This concluding chapter expands on several methodological questions regarding the sub-field of political humor research, especially: (1) In any given society, to what extent is political humor addressed to both/all sides of the political spectrum—the question of “balance”; (2) What are the factors underlying the influence of political humor? (3) Assuming political humor is effective, is its influence greater on governmental policy, personnel, and/or ideology, or on the general public (or segments thereof)? (4) To what extent does the specific medium through which the political humor is expressed have influence—and for each medium, on whom? These and other ancillary variables are discussed here as a sort of “road map” for future scholars studying this fascinating (and smile-generating), but under-researched, topic.