Just a bit of fun: the camouflaging and defending functions of humour in recruitment videos of the British and Swedish armed forces

“We are not amused”. The appreciation of British humour by British and American English L1 users

“…Kopper (2020), for example, discussed how the British used cartoons to ridicule the US for not joining WWI, demonstrating that irony and ridicule can go down as friendly ribbing among equal parties and play a conflict-mediating role. Beck and Spencer (2020) looked at British humour in international politics focusing on satirical and comedic narratives in the recruitment videos of armed forces. The specifics of British humour have also been used as good cases for more humour studies, such as Ajtony ( 2020), Jabłońska-Hood (2020), and Zhang and Pearce (2019).…”

The platformization of military communication: The digital strategy of the Israel Defense Forces on Twitter

“…The activation of relational dispositions through the witty and ‘smart’ practices (Silvestri, 2016) characterizing affective communities (Papacharissi, 2015) allows for the shaping of collective perceptions toward the identification of military forces as ‘good, natural, and necessary’ (Jackson, 2019: 257). These practices operate through camouflage mechanisms: for example, using irony in ‘unsuspected’ content such as recruitment promotion videos serves a dual strategy of promoting militarism and its contemporary concealment while keeping public criticism at bay (Beck and Spencer, 2021).…”

Militarizing antimilitarism? Exploring the gendered representation of military service in German recruitment videos on social media

“…Such alternative articulations of masculinity can, in principle, contribute to disrupting and breaking up hegemonic militarized masculinities (Butler 2004). However, in DR, this banter proves to be a double-edged sword; the humorous critique of militarized masculinity produces an image of military service as a challenging but also "fun" occupation, thus essentially normalizing militarism and concealing violence (Beck and Spencer 2021;Dinnen 2016). Indeed, scenes like Demelius' OOTD presentations suggest that there is room for heterogeneity and diversity in the Bundeswehr.…”

“…Scholars have, for example, examined differences between branches of the United States military and the function of ambiguous and contradictory messaging, such as messaging that is less aggressive, more risk averse, and more diverse (Brown 2012;Strand 2021;Strand and Berndtsson 2015;Strand and Kehl 2019). Others have explored humor in the camouflaging of militarism and the delegitimation of criticism (Beck and Spencer 2021). These studies have shown how more complicated articulations of military masculinity, while in contradiction to the stereotypical warrior hero, increase the military's appeal for a broader audience and also risk hiding the violence committed on behalf of the state, such as by associating it with fitness or with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights (Strand 2021;Strand and Kehl 2019).…”

“…This article complements existing research through an analysis of Germany as a previously understudied case that is particularly interesting for several reasons. First, the majority of studies on military recruitment so far have focused on the Anglosphere and, more recently, Sweden (Beck and Spencer 2021;Brown 2012;Jester 2021;Strand 2021;Strand and Berndtsson 2015;Strand and Kehl 2019). Empirically, this exploration of a new case adds to our understanding of gender and military recruitment.…”