A Decade of Dark Humor

A Decade of Dark Humor
Author: Ted Gournelos
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2011-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1617030074

A Decade of Dark Humor analyzes ways in which popular and visual culture used humor-in a variety of forms-to confront the attacks of September 11, 2001 and, more specifically, the aftermath. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars from four countries to discuss the impact of humor and irony on both media discourse and tangible political reality. Furthermore, it demonstrates that laughter is simultaneously an avenue through which social issues are deferred or obfuscated, a way in which neoliberal or neoconservative rhetoric is challenged, and a means of forming alternative political ideologies. The volume's contributors cover a broad range of media productions, including news parodies (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, The Onion), TV roundtable shows (Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher), comic strips and cartoons (Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks, Jeff Danzinger's editorial cartoons), television drama (Rescue Me), animated satire (South Park), graphic novels (Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers), documentary (Fahrenheit 9/11), and other productions. Along with examining the rhetorical methods and aesthetic techniques of these productions, the essays place each in specific political and journalistic contexts, showing how corporations, news outlets, and political institutions responded to-and sometimes co-opted-these forms of humor.

African American Humor, Irony and Satire

African American Humor, Irony and Satire
Author: Dana A. Williams
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2009-03-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1443806560

African American Humor, Irony, and Satire: Ishmael Reed, Satirically Speaking includes select proceedings from the annual Heart’s Day Conference, sponsored by the Department of English at Howard University. Among the collection’s many strengths is the range of essays included here. Essays on Ishmael Reed center the collection, and satirists from George Schuyler to Aaron McGruder are examined as are popular culture comedians Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle. Thus, the collection adds broadly to the body of scholarship on traditional and non-traditional interpretations of humor, irony, and satire. What these essays also reveal is how the lens of humor, irony, and satire as a way of reading texts is especially useful in highlighting the complexity of African American life and culture. The essays also uncover crucial but no so obvious connections between African Americans and other world cultures.

Misinformation and Mass Audiences

Misinformation and Mass Audiences
Author: Brian G. Southwell
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2018-01-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 147731458X

Lies and inaccurate information are as old as humanity, but never before have they been so easy to spread. Each moment of every day, the Internet and broadcast media purvey misinformation, either deliberately or accidentally, to a mass audience on subjects ranging from politics to consumer goods to science and medicine, among many others. Because misinformation now has the potential to affect behavior on a massive scale, it is urgently important to understand how it works and what can be done to mitigate its harmful effects. Misinformation and Mass Audiences brings together evidence and ideas from communication research, public health, psychology, political science, environmental studies, and information science to investigate what constitutes misinformation, how it spreads, and how best to counter it. The expert contributors cover such topics as whether and to what extent audiences consciously notice misinformation, the possibilities for audience deception, the ethics of satire in journalism and public affairs programming, the diffusion of rumors, the role of Internet search behavior, and the evolving efforts to counteract misinformation, such as fact-checking programs. The first comprehensive social science volume exploring the prevalence and consequences of, and remedies for, misinformation as a mass communication phenomenon, Misinformation and Mass Audiences will be a crucial resource for students and faculty researching misinformation, policymakers grappling with questions of regulation and prevention, and anyone concerned about this troubling, yet perhaps unavoidable, dimension of current media systems.

Irony and Outrage

Irony and Outrage
Author: Dannagal Goldthwaite Young
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2020
Genre: Mass media
ISBN: 0190913088

This text explores the aesthetics, underlying logics, and histories of two seemingly distinct genres - liberal political satire and conservative opinion talk - making the case that they should be thought of as the logical extensions of the psychology of the left and right, respectively.

Irony and Sarcasm

Irony and Sarcasm
Author: Roger Kreuz
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2020-02-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0262538261

A biography of two troublesome words. Isn't it ironic? Or is it? Never mind, I'm just being sarcastic (or am I?). Irony and sarcasm are two of the most misused, misapplied, and misunderstood words in our conversational lexicon. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, psycholinguist Roger Kreuz offers an enlightening and concise overview of the life and times of these two terms, mapping their evolution from Greek philosophy and Roman rhetoric to modern literary criticism to emojis. Kreuz describes eight different ways that irony has been used through the centuries, proceeding from Socratic to dramatic to cosmic irony. He explains that verbal irony—irony as it is traditionally understood—refers to statements that mean something different (frequently the opposite) of what is literally intended, and defines sarcasm as a type of verbal irony. Kreuz outlines the prerequisites for irony and sarcasm (one of which is a shared frame of reference); clarifies what irony is not (coincidence, paradox, satire) and what it can be (among other things, a socially acceptable way to express hostility); recounts ways that people can signal their ironic intentions; and considers the difficulties of online irony. Finally, he wonders if, because irony refers to so many different phenomena, people may gradually stop using the word, with sarcasm taking over its verbal duties.

On the Discourse of Satire

On the Discourse of Satire
Author: Paul Simpson
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2003-11-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9027295999

This book advances a model for the analysis of contemporary satirical humour. Combining a range of theoretical frameworks in stylistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, Simpson examines both the methods of textual composition and the strategies of interpretation for satire. Verbal irony is central to the model, in respect of which Simpson isolates three principal “ironic phases” that shape the uptake of satirical humour. Throughout the book, consistent emphasis is placed on satire’s status as a culturally situated discursive practice, while the categories of the model proposed are amply illustrated with textual examples. A notable feature of the book is a chapter on the legal implications of using satirical humour as a weapon of attack in the public domain. A book where Jonathan Swift meets Private Eye magazine, this entertaining and thought-provoking study will interest those working in stylistics, humorology, pragmatics and discourse analysis. It also has relevance for forensic discourse analysis, and for media, literary and cultural studies.

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere
Author: James E. Caron
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2021-04-19
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0271090332

Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, and Jimmy Kimmel—these comedians are household names whose satirical takes on politics, the news, and current events receive some of the highest ratings on television. In this book, James E. Caron examines these and other satirists through the lenses of humor studies, cultural theory, and rhetorical and social philosophy, arriving at a new definition of the comic art form. Tracing the history of modern satire from its roots in the Enlightenment values of rational debate, evidence, facts, accountability, and transparency, Caron identifies a new genre: “truthiness satire.” He shows how satirists such as Colbert, Bee, Oliver, and Kimmel—along with writers like Charles Pierce and Jack Shafer—rely on shared values and on the postmodern aesthetics of irony and affect to foster engagement within the comic public sphere that satire creates. Using case studies of bits, parodies, and routines, Caron reveals a remarkable process: when evidence-based news reporting collides with a discursive space asserting alternative facts, the satiric laughter that erupts can move the audience toward reflection and possibly even action as the body politic in the public sphere. With rigor, humor, and insight, Caron shows that truthiness satire pushes back against fake news and biased reporting and that the satirist today is at heart a citizen, albeit a seemingly silly one. This book will appeal to anyone interested in and concerned about public discourse in the current era, especially researchers in media studies, communication studies, political science, and literary and cultural studies.

Humor and Irony in Nineteenth-century German Women's Writing

Humor and Irony in Nineteenth-century German Women's Writing
Author: Helen Chambers
Publisher: Camden House
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2007
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781571133045

Brings to light unsuspectedly rich sources of humor in the works of prominent nineteenth-century women writers. Nineteenth-century German literature is seldom seen as rich in humor and irony, and women's writing from that period is perhaps even less likely to be seen as possessing those qualities. Yet since comedy is bound to societal norms, and humor and irony are recognized weapons of the weak against authority, what this innovative study reveals should not be surprising: women writers found much to laugh at in a bourgeois age when social constraints, particularlyon women, were tight. Helen Chambers analyzes prose fiction by leading female writers of the day who prominently employ humor and irony. Arguing that humor and irony involve cognitive and rational processes, she highlights the inadequacy of binary theories of gender that classify the female as emotional and the male as rational. Chambers focuses on nine women writers: Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Ida Hahn-Hahn, Ottilie Wildermuth, Helene Böhlau, Marie vonEbner-Eschenbach, Ada Christen, Clara Viebig, Isolde Kurz, and Ricarda Huch. She uncovers a rich seam of unsuspected or forgotten variety, identifies fresh avenues of approach, and suggests a range of works that merit a place onuniversity reading lists and attention in scholarly studies. Helen Chambers is Professor of German at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK.

The Cambridge Introduction to Satire

The Cambridge Introduction to Satire
Author: Jonathan Greenberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2019
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 1107030188

Provides a comprehensive overview for both beginning and advanced students of satiric forms from ancient poetry to contemporary digital media.

Irony and Humor

Irony and Humor
Author: Leonor Ruiz Gurillo
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2013-07-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027271593

Irony and Humor: From pragmatics to discourse is a complete updated panorama of linguistic research on irony and humor, based on a variety of perspectives, corpora and theories. The book collects the most recent contributions from such diverse approaches as Relevance Theory, Cognitive Linguistics, General Theory of Verbal Humor, Neo-Gricean Pragmatics or Argumentation. The volume is organized in three parts referring to pragmatic perspectives, mediated discourse, and conversational interaction. This book will be highly relevant for anyone interested in pragmatics, discourse analysis as well as social sciences.