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In:The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts
Edited by Esther Linares Bernabéu
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 335] 2023
► pp. 32–64

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Political-electoral memes and
interactional humour on Twitter

 | University of Bologna
 | University of Seville
Published online: 24 May 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.335.02ala
Abstract
This chapter presents the results of a qualitative study of a corpus of replies to humoristic memes, which were published and viralised on Twitter during the Spanish general elections campaign held on November 2019. Based on the General Theory of Verbal Humour and on its adaptation to multimodal humour, this study aims at establishing whether and how memes made up of a single image or a combination of an image and a caption may generate humorous effects on the imagined audience on Twitter and encourage responses that entail continued humour. The results show that most of the memes analysed convey recognition, understanding, appreciation, and agreement among Twitter users, whose responses express laughter using different multimodal affordances, or replicate the humorous contents of the meme by producing new memes. Moreover, humour created by these memes enables producer users and recipients to challenge the political power, while nurturing in-group solidarity.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
    • 2.1Memes
    • 2.2Political humor
  • 3.Description of corpus and methodological considerations
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Qualitative analysis
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (61)
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