TY - JOUR
T1 - Looking for truth in absurdity
T2 - Humour as community-building and dissidence against authoritarianism
AU - Korkut, Umut
AU - McGarry, Aidan
AU - Erhart, Itir
AU - Eslen-Ziya, Hande
AU - Jenzen, Olu
PY - 2021/1/4
Y1 - 2021/1/4
N2 - What makes humour an honest and a direct communication tool for people? How do social networking and digital media transmit user-generated political and humorous content? Our research argues that the way in which humour is deployed through digital media during protest action allows protestors to assert humanity and sincerity against dehumanising political manipulation frameworks. Humorous content, to this extent, enables and is indicative of independent thinking and creativity. It causes contemplation, confronts the hegemonic power of the oppressor, and challenges fear and apathy. In order to conduct this research, we collected and analysed tweets shared during the Gezi Park protests. Gezi Parkı was chosen as the keyword since it was an unstructured and neutral term. Among millions of visual images shared during the protests, we concentrate on those that depict humour both in photography and video formats.
AB - What makes humour an honest and a direct communication tool for people? How do social networking and digital media transmit user-generated political and humorous content? Our research argues that the way in which humour is deployed through digital media during protest action allows protestors to assert humanity and sincerity against dehumanising political manipulation frameworks. Humorous content, to this extent, enables and is indicative of independent thinking and creativity. It causes contemplation, confronts the hegemonic power of the oppressor, and challenges fear and apathy. In order to conduct this research, we collected and analysed tweets shared during the Gezi Park protests. Gezi Parkı was chosen as the keyword since it was an unstructured and neutral term. Among millions of visual images shared during the protests, we concentrate on those that depict humour both in photography and video formats.
KW - Gezi
KW - Turkey
KW - aesthetics
KW - dissidence
KW - humour
KW - social movements
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098739999&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0192512120971151
DO - 10.1177/0192512120971151
M3 - Article
SN - 0192-5121
VL - 43
SP - 629
EP - 647
JO - International Political Science Review
JF - International Political Science Review
IS - 5
ER -