Humour as discursive practice in Nigeria’s 2015 presidential election online campaign discourse

Abstract

One of the most popular forms of humour on the Internet is memes. Given the identity construction motif that is associated with memes, agents of memes select targets outside the in-group and criticise the targets' behaviour for ideological purposes. This study examines the patterns of humour evidenced in the deployment of Internet memes (both verbal and visual) in the online campaign discourse of the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria. Data for the study consist of Internet memes produced and disseminated during the presidential election campaign between December 2014 and March 2015. Considering Archakis and Tsakona's view that humour can be a very efficient means of identity construction, the study applies Van Dijk's socio-cognitive model with particular reference to the theoretical concept of the 'ideological square', which encapsulates the twin strategies of positive 'in-group' description and negative 'out-group' description. This theoretical approach is complemented with Neuendorf et al.'s taxonomy of theoretical perspectives on humour. The study reveals that the memes deployed in the presidential election online campaign discourse largely serve subversive purposes to detract greatly from the electoral value of the targets. In terms of the reinforcing function of humour, however, serious socio-political issues were raised to express the public's worries and desires in a bottom-up communication flow.

Humour generation and multimodal framing of political actor in the 2015 Nigerian presidential election campaign memes

“…However, these studies have not intensively accounted for the unified deployment of visual and linguistic resources to create humour and construct specific frames for social actors in internet memes in the context of emerging African democracies. The closest to the present study in focus is Adegoju & Oyebode (2015). It establishes humour as discursive resources for political representation with reference to the internet memes produced during the 2015 Nigerian presidential election campaign.…”

“…A number of studies have examined memes in political discourse from the perspectives of motivation for meme production and nature of memetic texts; the role of memes in instantiating political consciousness, setting political agenda and engaging in political criticism; and the discursive appropriation of memes in the representation of political candidates (Shifman et al 2007;Chen 2013;Tay 2014;Adegoju & Oyebode 2015;Huttington 2016;Dzanic & Berberovic 2017). However, these studies have not intensively accounted for the unified deployment of visual and linguistic resources to create humour and construct specific frames for social actors in internet memes in the context of emerging African democracies.…”

Beyond Tweets: Pragmatic Analysis of Humor as a Brand Image in Burger King’s Tweets

“…Various studies have started to address the importance of humorous content used in Twitter (Alaman & Rueda, 2011) to communicate different purposes (Yliopisto, 2016), notably in business and political context twitter (Oyebode & Adegoju, 2015;Farias, 2017;Lalancette & Raynauld, 2017). Their studies show a clear intersection between tweets, hashtag, and intended messaging.…”

Tweet your #Mo and save a Bro

“…First, CMC provides open, free places for identity expression, formation, consolidation, maintenance and negotiation during collective action. On websites, blogs, forums and social media, identity processes are fostered through icons, symbols, images, narratives and discursive strategies that people use to construct social (Adegoju & Oyebode, 2015;Anderson & Grace, 2015;Han, 2015;Kharroub & Bas, 2015;Smith, Gavin, & Sharp, 2015) and collective identities (Chiluwa, 2012;Choi & Park, 2014;Drissel, 2013;Jaworsky, 2015;Kavada, 2015;Lengel & Newsom, 2014;MacKay & Dallaire, 2012;Penney, 2015;Svensson, 2012;Treré, 2015). Multiple-type studies show CMC's effectiveness at fostering the transition from individual to collective identities on blogs and social media (Chapman & Coffé, 2015;Gerbaudo, 2015;Ortiz & Ostertag, 2014;Soon & Kluver, 2014) However, research mostly focuses on the identity process' initial stages; studies on later phases remain scant (Drissel, 2013;Soon & Kluver, 2014;Svensson, 2012;Svensson, Neumayer, Banfield-Mumb, & Schossboeck, 2015;Treré, 2015).…”