Digital Rhetoric and Humor Concepts

This set of flashcards covers key concepts related to digital rhetoric, humor, and their social implications based on lecture notes.

Digital Rhetoric

Definition: The use of persuasive communication in online spaces like social media, videos, and memes. It applies ideas like credibility, emotion, logic, and timing to how messages are created, shared, and interpreted using text, images, and video. In humor, it also considers how jokes circulate and how different audiences understand them.

Annie’s Example: Article by Joel Penney, ‘It’s So Hard Not to be Funny in This Situation’: Memes and Humor in U.S. Youth Online Political Expression. A youth in the focus group recounted how her friend posted a picture of him throwing a drink at a truck painted with Trump’s face and the MAGA slogan. It was popular and got a lot of comments. The youth shared the idea that someone will want to post because they know that their followers are like-minded and will back them up on this viewpoint. Example of how digital rhetoric is shared with the knowledge that it will be received well by their community, whereas it would be received differently if it went completely viral or ended up on the wrong side of the internet.

Affective Labor

Definition: The often invisible work of managing emotions and social relationships to shape how others feel. In humor, it involves using jokes, laughter, and wit to create feelings like comfort, connection, or entertainment. Although it seems natural or spontaneous, it is often used strategically in workplaces and media to boost engagement, productivity, or value. Overall, it highlights how creating emotional responses through humor can be a form of labor.

Example: Article by K.A. Parkhill et al, Laughing It Off? Humour, Affect, and Emotion Work in Communities Living With Nuclear Risk. 5 year mixed methods research project, where they conducted 61 interviews in two sites where people lived near a nuclear power plant. These communities often used humor to suppress vulnerabilities, using affective labor to cope.

Racial Baggage

Definition: Refers to the historical, social, and emotional weight of stereotypes, discrimination, and inequality tied to race. In humor, jokes can “activate” this baggage, meaning they draw on the deeper histories of structural inequality, rather than being harmless or “just jokes.” This shows how racial humor is connected to power and structural oppression. Depending on how it’s used, it can either reinforce harmful stereotypes or challenge them.

Example: Article by Christina A. Sue and Tanya Golash-Boza, ‘It Was Only a Joke’: How Racial Humour Fuels Colour-Blind Ideologies in Mexico and Peru. An example they point to is the Mexican comic book character Memín Pinguín. Critics in the U.S. argued that the character portrayed an offensive stereotype of people of African descent. These accusations of racism breached the dominant national ideology that racism doesn’t exist in the country; it was defended by Mexicans as “just a joke.” 

Interpellation

Definition: The process by which power—especially the state—“calls” individuals into social roles and identities, shaping how they see themselves within a larger system. According to Yeh, this happens through ideology, where people come to believe their position in social hierarchies (like citizenship, race, or class) is natural and legitimate. It shows how states maintain control by reproducing subjects who accept these roles, even beyond national borders. In humor, jokes can interpellate audiences by placing them into roles (who laughs vs. who is laughed at), revealing or reinforcing these power structures.

Example: Article by Rihan Yeh, Visas, Jokes, and Contraband: Citizenship and Sovereignty at the Mexico-U.S. Border. When people are questioned at the border through checkpoints and visa interviews, they are being positioned by the U.S. “power” as certain types of subjects within a racialized and hierarchical system.

Risk Society

Definition: A term by Ulrich Beck describing a modern society increasingly preoccupied with the future and with safety, which generates risk. This risk is caused by human activity, like environmental or economic crises. In this context, people are  highly aware of potential consequences and uncertainty, especially in social interactions. Humor plays an important role by helping people cope with these anxieties, but it is also carefully managed to avoid offense or backlash. This shows that humor is not “just a joke,” but a way to navigate risk and social tension.

Annie’s Example: Article by Victoria Bernal, Please Forget Democracy and Justice: Eritrean Politics and the Powers of Humor. On an Eritrean website, someone made a joke about the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea over land, comparing the countries to Tom and Jerry. Use of humor in coping with situations of extreme adversity, such as being a small and vulnerable country fighting for independence/land against a much larger country.

Imagined Communities

Definition: Large groups of people who feel connected and share a common identity, even though they will never meet each other. Coined by Benedict Anderson, the concept shows that these communities are socially constructed through shared culture, values, and understanding. Humor helps build these communities by creating inside jokes, references, and shared meanings that make people feel a sense of belonging.

Example: Article by Ayumi Matsuda-Rivero, Clapping Back on TikTok: Black-Asian Multiraciality and Humor. How Blasian people used social media like TikTok to share their experiences and foster a sense of shared community. Using humor to talk about the unique, difficult and intersectional experiences of being both Black and Asian.

Patrimonial Authority

Definition: A system where political control and artistic expression intersects. Authority is based on personal relationships, tradition, and loyalty rather than formal laws or rules. It often relies on hierarchy and “old-school” forms of control tied to individuals rather than institutions. In humor, this shows up in jokes that either reinforce or challenge traditional authority and power structures.

Example: Article by Noelle J. Molé, Trusted Puppets, Tarnished Politicians. Politician (who was the Prime Minister of Italy multiple times) Silvio Berlusconi, used humor to build power based on charisma, relationships, and loyalty rather than through democratic means. 

Parody

Definition: A form of humor that imitates a well-known person, style, or work in an exaggerated and often ridiculous way. It highlights the flaws, clichés, or absurdities of the original while making the audience laugh. Overall, parody works as a “funny imitation” that both entertains and critiques what it is copying.

Example: Article by Tim Highfield, News Via Voldemort: Parody Accounts in Topical Discussions on Twitter. Talks about how Twitter accounts imitate well-known figures (like Lord Voldemort) and place them into real-world events in exaggerated, humorous ways.

Satire

Definition: A form of humor that uses irony, exaggeration, and ridicule to criticize society, politics, or human behavior. While it is often funny, its main purpose is to expose problems like hypocrisy or corruption and make people think about change. By making serious issues seem absurd, satire highlights deeper social and political flaws.

Example: Article by Daniel M. Knight, Wit and Greece’s Economic Crisis. People in Greece use funny or exaggerated slogans to make fun of politicians and economic policies, but they’re actually pointing out serious problems like poverty and unfairness. The humor isn’t just for laughs—it’s meant to criticize those in power and make people think about what’s going wrong.

Incongruity

Definition: When something is funny because it doesn’t match what you expect—it feels out of place, surprising, or illogical. In humor, this mismatch creates confusion at first, and then becomes funny when you realize the absurd connection.

Example: In class, when discussing the article by Giselinde Kuipers, Media Culture and Internet Disaster Jokes, Professor Lampland showed pictures of Bert (the muppet) being likened to Osama Bin Laden. At first, it feels off putting because the humor toward 9/11 feels out of place; it’s an absurd kind of humor.

Freud's Theory of Humor

Freud = repression → joke → control relaxes → pleasure + bonding

• Jokes come from the unconscious, not just clever thinking, and are rooted in hidden emotions like aggression, desire, envy, and hostility.

• Because society represses these impulses, humor becomes a compromise formation that lets forbidden thoughts appear in disguised, acceptable form.

• Jokes produce pleasure through psychic economy — relaxing mental control frees stored energy, experienced as laughter and relief.

• Humor is social: shared laughter confirms norm-breaking is allowed and builds group bonds.

Bergson's Theory of Humor

Bergson = we laugh when humans act like machines — humor restores flexibility.

• Bergson argued that the essence of human life is spontaneity, flexibility, and movement.

• We laugh when a person behaves in a rigid, mechanical, or automatic way — like a robot instead of a living, adaptive human.

• Humor happens when something “mechanical becomes encrusted on the living,” such as repetitive routines, stiff formality, frozen dignity, or mindless habits.

• Laughter works as a social corrective — it gently punishes rigidity and pushes people back toward natural, flexible, socially aware behavior.

• In this sense, humor is society’s way of keeping people from becoming too stiff, pompous, or out of sync with everyday life.

• Bergson saw humor as life pushing back against excessive structure, rules, and control.

Douglas's Theory of Humor

Douglas = humor works by disrupting social patterns — and revealing norms as arbitrary.

SOCIAL CONTEXT

• Douglas argued that jokes cannot be understood in the words alone — they must be analyzed within the total social situation.

• Unlike Bergson and Freud, Douglas emphasized that humor is not always moral punishment or emotional release — it is primarily structural and social.

What counts as a joke? Laughter

• What counts as a joke depends on cultural context, relationships, and social norms, which is why humor differs across societies.

• Laughter only occurs when the joke structure fits the social structure — meaning the group allows and recognizes the norm violation.

CONFRONTING

• Humor always involves confronting one accepted social pattern with another hidden or conflicting pattern.

• A joke works by temporarily subverting a dominant structure of meaning, showing that social norms are not natural or necessary.

• This disruption feels pleasurable because it gives a brief sense of freedom from rigid social order — but the order quickly returns after the joke.

Essay #2: The emotional impact of humor and its use in widely differing situations has been a recurring theme in class. Give 2 examples of how/why this is. Provide 2 examples from the course materials.

1. Humor used to oppress minority groups to maintain power and control; reproduces inequality. - Article by Christina A. Sue and Tanya Golash-Boza, ‘It Was Only a Joke’: How Racial Humour Fuels Colour-Blind Ideologies in Mexico and Peru. An example they point to is the Mexican comic book character Memín Pinguín. Critics in the U.S. argued that the character portrayed an offensive stereotype of people of African descent. These accusations of racism breached the dominant national ideology that racism doesn’t exist in the country; it was defended by Mexicans as “just a joke.” 

2. Used by minority groups to cope, speak of their experiences in a lighthearted manner, share with others, and reclaim their identity. - Article by Ayumi Matsuda-Rivero, Clapping Back on TikTok: Black-Asian Multiraciality and Humor. How Blasian people used social media like TikTok to share their experiences and foster a sense of shared community. Using humor to talk about the unique, difficult and intersectional experiences of being both Black and Asian.