The Critical Comic

Stand-Up: Definitions (A.K.A. Chattoo T.L.E. III. D. 1.)

Posted on August 13, 2017 by nwilson

When Caty Borum Chattoo, co-director of the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University turns to stand-up, she begins by defining it and giving some history of the form. I’ve written a similar document using some of the same sources (it was part of chapter one of my dissertation), so I’ll take some partial credit for this expanded version.

Definition of stand-up

Folk art

Stand-up comedy is a vulgar art. It can be vulgar in the usual way we use that word. But vulgar really means ‘of the people.’ It’s the people’s art. – Comedian George Carlin

Another word for vulgar that we could use here is folk art or folk culture. As opposed to high art/culture, which is elevated to its status by the elite, or mass art/culture, which is produced by industry elites for the people, folk art/culture is produced by the people for themselves (Strinati).

These lines are fuzzy and permeable. Elite critics can still say Carlin was one of the best stand-ups, thereby elevating him to high art. Comedy clubs might do more than nudge comics into “stock” character and humor types, thereby manufacturing mass art.

As just a brief example, my local club gives open mic’ers three minutes, and says they want to see straight setup-punchline jokes. This greatly limits what humor is to a small, preset category. The time limit alone would hamstring any attempt to tell stories, work the crowd, build rapport, etc.

Nevertheless, stand-up can rightfully be said to be a vulgar, folk art.

Form

Chattoo gives a definition of the form of stand-up that is partial, but decent. Stand-up is when:

A comic stands on stage and entertains a live audience with jokes and social commentary, with minimal or no props.

She somewhat misses duos like the Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, and the Smothers Brothers – though it could be argued these were more sketch comedy and less stand-up. The same cannot be said of the Sklar Brothers or the Lucas Brothers. Further, some comics sit down from time to time.

The live audience is non-negotiable, but stand-up’s material is broader than strict jokes and commentary; it includes musical acts including parodies, slapstick, impressions, ventriloquism, stories – there are lots of forms. This is why Lawrence E. Mintz expands his definition to include the comic “behaving comically and/or saying funny things” (71).

Finally, while the standard props are the microphone and a stool, and frequently a drink or cigarette is used, there are also those musical instruments, puppets – and what do we do with Carrot Top and Gallagher? Stand-up has no clear and easy limitations.

From my own dissertation, I would add with Robert A. Stebbins that stand-up is primarily verbal (though augmented by theatrical embellishments), often memorized (although the performer is free to ad lib) and expressed in a conversational manner. Thus, the stand-up routine tends to be a one-sided conversation with the possibility of more extensive audience interaction than their resultant laughter (which is assumed), although this interaction is not always welcomed by the comic.

Finally, the routine is usually written (and therefore owned) by the performer, a condition very different from the norm in other forms of entertainment (e.g. television and film). This has important repercussions in terms of copyright law when it comes to joke stealing.

Reach of stand-up

I agree with Chattoo that stand-up is the basis for much of the humor we see everywhere else – most of our performers in T.V. and film were stand-ups – and we have access to it like never before:

Digital-era stand-up comedy audiences are no longer limited to live experiences alone, expanding stand-up’s reach and potential social influence.

So we have access to it, but moreover we desire it: stand-up offers rewards in the form of pleasure, an effect that is well documented.

However, I find that, in separating out forms of humor, Chattoo does stand-up a disservice in terms of representing its reach. If most late night hosts and satirical news hosts are former stand-ups, if most of our T.V. and film performers were stand-ups, then where does stand-up end and something else begin?

For instance, she notes that entertainment storytelling differs from stand-up in its ability to develop para social relationships over an extended period of time. Through these para social relationships, we identify with characters and react emotionally to their situations. However, what if the actor also does stand-up (since we can view their stand-up and shows outside their original timeline, the timing of each doesn’t matter); if the stand-up and character are aligned, doesn’t the stand-up garner the same results? Is this only true when they tell stories or act in sketches in a similar character, or do the jokes accomplish it too?

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Mintz, Lawrence E. “Stand-Up Comedy as Social and Cultural Mediation.” American Quarterly 37.1 (1985): 71-80.

Stebbins, Robert A. The Laugh-Makers: Stand-Up Comedy as Art, Business and Life-Style. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1990.

Strinati, Dominic. An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, 2^nd Edition. New York: Routledge (2004).

Wilson, Nathan. Was That Supposed to be Funny? A Rhetorical Analysis of Politics, Problems and Contradictions in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy. Dissertation in partial completion of the Ph.D. August, 2008.

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Chattoo, The Laughter Effect III. A. 3. Comedy Formats: Satirical News Cautions

Posted on August 12, 2017 by nwilson

Still talking about Caty Borum Chattoo, co-director of the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University and a comedy fan’s, May (2017) release “The Laughter Effect: The [Serious] Role of Comedy in Social Change“, in which she summarizes the research and gives advice on how to use humor to further social issues. As previously described, Chattoo creates list of comedy formats that work for social change:

Satire/Satirical News
Scripted entertainment storytelling
Marketing and advertising
Stand-up and sketch comedy

I’m currently addressing her views on satire. In this installment (the eighth), we’ll discuss the cautionary notes about satirical news: that we’ve set the bar too high, that satirical messages are ambiguous, and that we should pick our battles.

The bar is too high

Young and his colleagues have cautioned that setting the bar for satire’s impact on audiences at learning and persuasion might be too high. I would point out that most bona fide messages don’t meet this criteria, especially when audiences don’t see them, don’t seek them out, and don’t engage with them.

Instead Chattoo summarizes Young and company, saying that “the important effects of cultural connection, raising awareness and adding an element of play into serious social issues might be the more realistic objectives.”

This leads to her first piece of advice, borrowed from Young and his colleagues:

Reconceptualize meaningful outcome measures: Possible impacts of satire for social issues should include the positive impact of sharing, play, laughter, creating shared popular culture experiences—instead of overt knowledge gain or behavior change.

Pretty straightforward here; we need to reframe what we expect humor to do, and my whole project sets out to recognize that this is not much different than what any message can do.

Ambiguity

Expectations

“Additionally,” Chattoo notes, “when dealing with issues that have well-established ideological or partisan perspectives, satire may not be effective.” She notes with Lamarre and company that

When information delivered via satire is ambiguous—often the very characteristic that makes satire amusing—individuals respond in ways that correspond with their original attitudes about the issue. This was demonstrated [by Lamarre and colleagues] in the case of Stephen Colbert’s ironic and deadpan style of satire on The Colbert Report: “Because satire is often ambiguous, biased information processing models provide an excellent framework for understanding how audiences see what they want to see in Colbert’s political satire.” In the face of ambiguous messages (i.e., political satire), individuals process or understand the information through a motivation for “political affiliation or self-enhancement.” In other words, people see what they want to see, and believe what they already believe, when they are confused (or, more precisely, when there are no external cues available to help them to interpret a message). Hoping satire can change someone’s mind about a hot-button civic, political or social issue—rather than hoping to engage the individual or place a new issue on a mental agenda—is likely futile.

This develops a point I’ve made in my published work (which BTW predates Lamarre and company *ahem*): Gring-Pemble and Watson wrote about satire’s ambiguity way back in 2003 – particularly when it relies on irony – we don’t need an “information processing model” to see that audiences see what they want to see – just look at the fact that Colbert was invited to speak at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in 2007 for your evidence of people (Republicans) wrongly thinking they knew what he was about – they saw what they wanted and believed what they already believed, and then were shocked by what transpired.

However, the further point is well-taken: that if the message is at all ambiguous, it will likely not persuade, or even teach. It is more likely to further entrench. However, I would point out that this would seem to require further, “central processing.”

Ironic Satire

Even those who interpreted it as satire directed at the President could have read him as being ironical – in the horatian sense that he didn’t mean a word of it. This ambiguity of message provides for a flexibility of uptake that severely affects the satirist’s ability to have an impact.

Trivialization

This can lead to satire being taken other ways as well: “For example,” she notes with Moyer Guse and his colleagues that “satire—as well as other forms of comedy—can risk inadvertently trivializing the severity of a complex issue.” This again harkens back to the idea of peripheral processing – that they didn’t take the speaker’s satire seriously – but with the added idea that they might conclude that the critique itself is trivial. Gring-Pemble and Watson point out this can easily happen with faint criticism or pseudo-satire; the audience concludes that there is no deeper critique to be made.

This is the problem with the third recommendation, “let comics be comics”: If they’re going for the “funny,” they risk not making the point effectively, or of people missing it, or misconstruing their message based on their expectations.

Pick your battles

Again channeling Young and his colleagues, Chattoo points out that “not all issues or people may be seen by the audience as fair game for satire:”

[Young et al.] To be effective, there needs to be an agreement between the satirist and satire that the satirized is worthy of and appropriate for attack…the audience has the ultimate agency in determining what can and cannot be treated in a humorous or satirical manner.

[Chattoo] And what is ripe for satire is usually—at least as illustrated in case studies—the individuals and institutions with power.

This leads to her final recommendation, borrowed from Young and colleagues:

Recognize the Boundaries of Political Satire and Parody: Some topics aren’t seen as fair game for satire, recognized when the person or issue doesn’t seem worthy of satire or is unfairly targeted. Be careful about the tone of the satire—who and what does it poke fun at?

This is the old adage that “Comedy punches up.” Colin Quinn mocks this notion in his 2016 stand-up special, The New York Story,

And when I say Polish, obviously, it’s a bit reductive to the rest of Eastern Europe… and I don’t want to marginalize the rest of Eastern Europe, because that’s punching down, and comedy never punches down, it only punches up. I read that from fifty people that never did comedy, they all said… what? What?

I laughed, and I also understood his mockery and agreed that his point is well taken, though it runs counter to common wisdom. Yes, audiences will put boundaries on what can be satirized, but here’s the kicker: different audiences will place different boundaries. Because satire frequently involves ridicule to maintain the status quo, it most certainly punches down, and frequently. Some audiences will be perfectly fine with that.

However, if the work the humorist is trying to do is progressive, then they will choose to punch up and make systemic problems and their causes the butt of their jokes, not down at victims by making them the butts of the jokes.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Gring-Pemble, Lisa and Martha Solomon Watson. “The Rhetorical Limits of Satire: An Analysis of James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 89.2 (2003): 132-53.

LaMarre, H. L., Landreville, K. D., & Beam, M. A., (2009). The irony of satire: Political ideology and the motivation to see what you want to see in The Colbert Report. International Journal of Press/Politics, 14(2), 212-231.

Moyer-Guse, E., Mahood, C., & Brookes, S., (2011). Entertainment education in the context of humor: Effects on safer sex intentions and risk perceptions. Health Communication, 26, 765-744.

Wilson, Nathan. “Irony and Silence/Ironies of Silence: On the Politics of Not Laughing.” Electronic Journal of Communication, 18 (2-4), 2008: 1-14.

Young, D. G., Holbert, R. L., & Jamieson, K. H., (2014). Successful practices for the strategic use of political parody and satire: Lessons from the P6 Symposium and the 2012 election campaign. American Behavioral Scientist, 58(9), 1111-1130.

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Chattoo, The Laughter Effect III. A. 2. Comedy Formats: Satirical News Impacts

Posted on August 11, 2017 by nwilson

In May (2017), Caty Borum Chattoo, co-director of the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University and a comedy fan, released “The Laughter Effect: The [Serious] Role of Comedy in Social Change“, in which she summarizes the research and gives advice on how to use humor to further social issues. As previously described, Chattoo creates list of comedy formats that work for social change:

Satire/Satirical News
Scripted entertainment storytelling
Marketing and advertising
Stand-up and sketch comedy

I”m currently addressing her views on satire. In this installment (the seventh), we’ll discuss the impacts of satirical news.

Influence – Persuasion

There is some question as to whether or not type of satire (juvenalian, horatian) matters when trying to influence audiences. As Chattoo notes,

In [Becker and Haller’s] study involving the use of self-deprecating humor vs. “other-directed” humor in TV satire about a social issue (blindness), viewers responded more positively to the positive—horatian—humor and developed more positive attitudes about the social issue than when the issue was depicted with the more aggressive, judgmental juvenalian humor. However, in [Holbert and friends’ later study] also involving political TV satire, viewers perceived the horatian satire as a lower-strength message than a traditional news op-ed, but found no differences with the harsher, juvenialian humor compared to an op-ed.

So the results are somewhat mixed, but the outputs are different: positive attitudes about the issue versus strength of message. The former might have a larger sleeper and priming effect, whereas the latter may have more of an impact.

Learning in one of two-modes

Chattoo finally returns to a point that she conflated earlier. Using the example of a hypothetical Jon Oliver rant from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, she says

Audiences may be thoughtfully considering his messages and arguments in a similar fashion to scrutinizing a more traditional news opinion piece.

So this process seems to be what she has described as central processing, in terms of Petty and Cacioppo’s model. She goes on to say:

Ultimately, how much people actively learn from satire—at least in the context of satirical faux news programs—depends in part on how people perceive the format in the first place. Do they see it as news or entertainment, or a mix of both? [Feldman] has demonstrated that people who think of The Daily Show as both entertainment and real information are able to learn more than people who perceive it as only entertainment.

This again emphasizes that audiences seek it out, and they do so not just for entertainment value, but, as Chattoo (summarizing Young) notes, because they hope “to make sense of the world and public affairs, and also because they see it as unbiased, ‘truthful and real.’” In short, they seek it out in order to learn.

Further, she argues with Young and colleagues that “the role of the messenger is key. For satire to work, the audience has to believe the source has some credibility in the issue he/she is discussing, and that he or she is authentic.” This brings us back to the idea of a bona fide speaker who means what he says, which is different than how audiences supposedly approach a stand-up comic. This leads her to her second and fourth recommendations, borrowed from Young and his colleagues:

Be Transparent & Authentic: For the audience, believing the messenger is crucial for satire to work.

Identify a Call To Action When You Have the Credibility to Do So: With credibility and authenticity from the source, satire should include a call to action for the audience.

However, if late night hosts are all stand-up comics, who usually say they can’t or won’t have an impact – Jon Stewart has claimed this; that his jokes are only “atmospheric” – and if their critiques are operating at the horatian level – the so called “Leno-izing of the news” – and if the audience is entertained and laughing (not centrally processing), then how can we theorize any type of persuasion, learning, etc.?

Breakdown of the two-mode model

So here’s where the two-mode processing models break down – by definition, either they process it as humor/entertainment, and laugh, or they process it as serious information, and scrutinize, and don’t laugh. A better idea is they laugh first, remember and scrutinize later. Still better is the idea that they laugh and scrutinize simultaneously, but that isn’t allowed in these models – once again, enjoyment, humor and laughter are typically treated as unconscious, embodied responses that will have nothing to do with conscious thought.

Agenda Setting: attracting attention & facilitating memory

Chattoo notes that there are other forms of influence beyond strict persuasion and learning; there’s also the agenda-setting function, which she’s previously described as attracting attention & facilitating memory, along with the so-called sleeper effect and the priming effect.

Chattoo summarizes Hollander, who notes that when particular civic or social issues are addressed through satire, audiences may not fully “recall” them, or gain specific knowledge (learning), but they may still recognize these issues – that’s the sleeper effect. She does not go into here, but it’s important to remember, that satire addresses particular characteristics of the issue, which then serve as a frame for understanding when these audiences encounter the issue again – they are “primed,” to interpret it a particular way.

Gateway effect

Further, satire grants entry into complex social issues, the so-called “gateway” effect discussed previously, which allows audiences to “pay greater attention to more serious news about [these social issues] over time.”

Chattoo notes additional benefits here not previously discussed (they’ve since been added):

In fact, [Feldman and colleagues have shown] this impact … as particularly great for those with less formal education and less understanding of or exposure to the issue in the first place.

Yes, she’s addressed the idea of it as an early exposure, but the idea of its impact on those with “less formal education” is entirely new.

Comics must be comics

However, this effect only works if people encounter the information, and that probably won’t happen unless it’s funny; that’s when people share it and others seek it out. This brings us to Chattoo’s third recommendation, borrowed from Young and his colleagues:

Let the Comedians Be Comedians: Creating something only mildly amusing defeats humor’s potential for impact; attempting humor means truly allowing the comedians to be funny about social issues.

Of course, this hamstrings a comic who is trying to be a bona fide speaker, as the common wisdom has it that you can either always go for the joke, or you can make your point, and Chattoo has already made this point – that serious messages hurt comedy.

So there is a tightrope to walk between being “transparent and authentic,” so as to build credibility for a “call to action,” and being “funny.” And this only gets more complicated as we add in other factors, like ambiguity, expectations, and targets. More to come!

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Becker, A. B., & Haller, B. A. (2014). When political comedy turns personal: Humor types, audience evaluations, and attitudes. The Howard Journal of Communication, 25, 34-55.

Feldman, L. (2013b). Learning about politics from The Daily Show: The role of viewer orientation and processing motivations. Mass Communication and Society, 16(4), 586 – 607.

Feldman, L., Leiserowitz, A., & Maibach, E., (2011). The Science of satire: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report as sources of public attention to science and the environment. In A. Amarasingam (Ed.), The Stewart/Colbert effect: Essays on the real impact of fake news, (pp. 25-46). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.

Holbert, R. L., Tchernev, J. M., Walther, W. O., Esralew, S. E., Benski, K., (2013). Young voter perceptions of political satire as persuasion: A focus on perceived influence, persuasive intent, and message strength. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 57(2), 170-186.

Hollander, B. A., (2005). Late-night learning: Do entertainment programs increase political campaign knowledge for young viewers? Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 49(4), pp. 405-415.

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology Vol. 19, (pp. 123-205). New York, NY: Academic Press.

Young, D. G. (2013). Laughter, learning, or enlightenment? Viewing and avoidance motivations behind The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 57(2), 153-169.

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Chattoo, The Laughter Effect III. A. 1. Comedy Formats: Satirical News Definitions and Types

Posted on August 10, 2017 by nwilson

Satire/Satirical News
Scripted entertainment storytelling
Marketing and advertising
Stand-up and sketch comedy

I’ll focus on the parts of these that directly address stand-up, but there’s a lot of overlap: Stand-ups sometimes employ satire. Stand-ups sometimes tell stories. There are also some differences–few stand-ups do more elaborate sketches. I’ll try to work through it in a way that makes sense. First up (sixth?), I’ll address the definitions of satire.

How it works: Pointing out – and re-framing – life’s absurdities

I’ve previously defined satire as “a directed effort to correct, censure or ridicule, to bring about contempt or derision and therefore to enforce the status quo” (Cuddon; Gring-Pemble and Watson; Morner and Rausch). Similarly, Chattoo states that satire “uses humor to point out the absurdness or inherent power dynamics of a situation.” While pointing out absurdity is, to a certain extent, to ridicule, pointing out power dynamics is not necessarily so.

Chattoo further argues, with Bore and his colleagues, that satire offers “a mechanism for political or social commentary on a state of affairs.” It’s worth noting, as Chattoo does, that satire is entertaining and humorous, but it is so of a purpose. As Bore and his colleagues describe it:

Satire uses humor as a weapon, attacking ideas, behaviors, institutions, or individuals by encouraging us to laugh at them. It may be gentle or hostile, clear-cut or ambiguous, aimed at “us” or “them”—or it may oscillate between different approaches, remaining flexible and surprising.

I like this description of satire, as it allows the satirical critique to take multiple forms, remaining fluid and interesting. However, it is still framed as laughing at, and the form satire takes cannot be so mercurial that we miss the point.

Getting it and litige

Chattoo also notes the necessity of “getting it,” which I have discussed via Jean Francois Lyotard’s notion of litige: which, as Maurice Charland describes it, is,

[A] dispute where both parties articulate their claims in a language they mutually share with a court or judge whose legitimacy they both recognize, [in which] the decorum of the court is known and respected by both parties, and the judgment imposes closure (221-22).

Similarly, Chattoo notes, with Young (2008),

On the audience’s part, satire requires some basic recognition and understanding of the original scenario at the heart of the joke, and is, therefore, culturally specific and relatively sophisticated…. To understand satirical jokes and to find them funny, individuals engage in active, involved processing known as “frame-shifting”—making the connection with the original information that is the target of the joke. With this kind of humor, the audience’s focus on “getting the joke” may reduce careful scrutiny of the message.

So here again we see the idea that the audience must share a frame of reference with the joke teller.

Once again, I take issue with the idea of “reducing scrutiny,” as it comes from Chattoo’s binary model of processing, courtesy of Petty and Cacioppo. The idea of “getting the joke” as a separate goal from “getting the message” seems to just shift our scrutiny from one goal to the other–we are still thinking. And who’s to say what we think about and what conclusions we will draw, once we are forced to engage in central processing–to do the work?

Types

Holbert and friends note that there are two forms of satire:

Juvenalian, a more hostile, “other-directed” form of humor that relies on aggression and judgement… [it] is inherently negative.
Horatian, which relies on and emphasizes elements of laughter, play and self-directed, self-deprecating humor… [in comparison to the Juvenalian form, it] involves more positive attributes

This distinction is useful, and parallels a distinction I’d forgotten: between deep or cutting satire and shallow or pseudo-satire [I’ll have to go back and add it to my section, when I get a moment.]

Chattoo considers “a satirical roast” to be the former, in that it has “an acidic juvenalian tone that exposes evil through scorn and ridicule.” Meanwhile “a TV program like Parks & Recreation” is the latter, a “horatian-satire-style lighter content that exposes foolishness.” I would say this is not a big enough distinction, perhaps owing to the nature of what we know of roasts, via their appearance on MTV–the jokes are frequently not very cutting; they could be worse or more harsh.

Similar to what I’ve discussed about Late Night Television and what Russell Peterson calls “Leno-izing” the news, Holbert’s (and friends) later study found that,

In today’s political media environment, horatian satire is dominant relative to juvenalian satire. The vast majority of satirical works offered on programs like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live, and the monologues crafted for various late-night talk show hosts (e.g., Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien) fall more in line with the horatian style.

It would seem that, as with deep versus shallow satire, we should be conceptualizing not polar opposites, but a spectrum, where maybe TDS and TCR are more toward juvenalian, but the whole is to the horatian side of the spectrum.

These distinctions might be important going forward.

Tips

In order not to bury the lead, I’d like to jump to the conclusion of the section and quickly list Young and colleague’s recommendations for using satire. I’ll bring these back in and comment on them as they become most relevant.

Reconceptualize meaningful outcome measures: Possible impacts of satire for social issues should include the positive impact of sharing, play, laughter, creating shared popular culture experiences—instead of overt knowledge gain or behavior change.
Be Transparent & Authentic: For the audience, believing the messenger is crucial for satire to work.
Let the Comedians Be Comedians: Creating something only mildly amusing defeats humor’s potential for impact; attempting humor means truly allowing the comedians to be funny about social issues.
Identify a Call to Action When You Have the Credibility to Do So: With credibility and authenticity from the source, satire should include a call to action for the audience.
Recognize the Boundaries of Political Satire and Parody: Some topics aren’t seen as fair game for satire, recognized when the person or issue doesn’t seem worthy of satire or is unfairly targeted. Be careful about the tone of the satire—who and what does it poke fun at?

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Bore, I.-L. K., & Reid, G., (2014). Laughing in the face of climate change? Satire as a device for engaging audiences in public debate. Science Communication, 36(4), 454-478.

Charland, Maurice. “Property and Propriety: Rhetoric, Justice, and Lyotard’s Différend.” Judgment Calls: Rhetoric, Politics, and Indeterminancy. Ed. John M. Sloop and James P. McDaniel. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998. 220-36.

Cuddon, J.A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 4^th ed. Rev. C.E. Preston. Williston, VT: Blackwell, 1998.

Gring-Pemble, Lisa and Martha Solomon Watson. “The Rhetorical Limits of Satire: An Analysis of James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 89.2 (2003): 132-53.

Holbert, R. L., Hmielowski, J., Jain, P., Lather, J., & Morey, A. (2011). Adding nuance to the study of political humor effects: Experimental research on Juvenalian satire versus Horatian satire. American Behavioral Scientist, 55, 187–211.

Lyotard, Jean François. “Lessons in Paganism.” The Lyotard Reader. Ed. Andrew Benjamin. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989/1993. 122-154.

Morner, Kathleen and Ralph Rausch. “Satire.” Dictionary of Literary Terms. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company, 1991. 194.

Peterson, Russell. Strange Bedfellows: The Politics of Late-Night Television. Doctorial Dissertation. The University of Iowa, 2005.

Young, D. G., (2008). The privileged role of the late-night joke: Exploring humor’s role in disrupting argument scrutiny. Media Psychology, 11, 119-142.

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Chattoo, The Laughter Effect II. C. How Comedy Works: Social Barriers and Sharing

Posted on August 9, 2017 by nwilson

attracting attention & facilitating memory
feeling: comedy’s route to persuasion
entering complex social issues
breaking down social barriers
sharing with others

In this fifth installment, I run through her last two points.

Breaking down social barriers

Comedy can introduce people, social issues and new norms in non-threatening, “non-othering” ways that encourage identification and connection, rather than alienation.

Here, Chattoo turns to Schiappa and his colleagues for the para social contract hypothesis. Basically, it’s the idea that when we watch TV or movies, we form relationships with the characters, the Friends become our friends, Will (of Will & Grace) becomes our gay friend; it’s the whole premise behind the movie, Nurse Betty.

The idea is that if these portrayals of minority groups are positive, we then have a positive relationship with the minority group, especially if we have few actual friends from or encounters with that minority group.

Smedema and her co-authors have shown this effect to work for people with physical disabilities too, though it’s complicated. As Chattoo explains:

As is the case in other complex social issues, particular portrayals of individuals with challenges may serve to dramatize and widen the gap between them and the audience, inadvertently evoking pity rather than encouraging connections.

Basically, while we have a greater familiarity, that may not lead to an ideal, healthy relationship. It all depends on the depiction.

Sharing with others

People share comedy to create shared cultural moments and display personal identity, amplifying serious messages.

More than ever before, comedy is shareable, and sharing things we like is how many people express themselves. As Chattoo notes,

Sharing a funny media product is a way to express both individual values and identities, and to commemorate shared cultural moments. In the process, sharing with peers anchors and amplifies the original messages.

The first part of this is like the John Cusack line from High Fidelity,

I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films – these things matter. Call me shallow but it’s the fuckin’ truth….

Postmodern theorists will argue that identity is a construct, and that the only encounter people have with our identity is via the things we say and do, which often centers around the things we like, so in a sense, they matter very much. There may not even be anything deeper; as Katie Holmes opines in Batman Begins:

However, there’s also the idea that in commemorating “shared cultural moments,” we don’t just reflect the reality around us, but in Kenneth Burke’s terms, we’ve selected portions of the reality, and reflected only the parts of that which we like; therefore we are deflecting reality. That’s what gets anchored and amplified – not all of it.

Further, Campo and friends found that humorous messages are more likely to get shared, and reshared, multiplying the number of people reached. Further this lead “to additive conversation-based effects and not just message-based effects”; people didn’t just absorb it, but interacted with it and talked about it. This is what Fraustino & Ma found about the CDC’s “Zombie Apocalypse” campaign, although we should remember that the campaign not only did not create changes in people’s behavior, but may have made them less likely to respond.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Campo, S., Askelson, N. M., Spies, E., Boxer, C., Scharp, K. M., Losch, M. E., (2013). “Wow, that was funny”: The value of exposure and humor in fostering campaign message sharing. Social Marketing Quarterly, 19(2), 84-96.

Fraustino, J. D., & Ma, L. (2015). CDC’s Use of Social Media and Humor in a Risk Campaign—“Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse.” Journal of Applied Communication, 222-241.

Schiappa, E., Gregg, P., & Hewes, D. (2005). The para social contact hypothesis. Communication Monographs, 72(1), 92–115.

Smedema, S. M., Ebener, D., & Grist-Gordon, V., (2012). The impact of humorous media on attitudes toward persons with disabilities. Disability & Rehabilitation, 34(17), 1431-1437.

Argumentation Theory/Big Theories

Petty & Cacioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

Posted on August 8, 2017 by nwilson

Caty Borum Chattoo turns to Petty & Cacioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) here (especially as it has been applied by Zhang), which theorizes two routes of information processing: central and peripheral.

[W]hen individuals experience serious information and news—and are able to process the information and are highly motivated to do so—they use a central cognitive route of processing by focusing on the merits of the message itself. But in a humor context, attitude shifts may occur in response to peripheral or heuristic cues—such as emotional reactions, liking the message source and believing the source is credible and believable. Persuasion then moves through a different route than the one employed when encountering a strong message delivered in a serious way. As individuals enjoy the comedy message and the messenger, they are less likely to scrutinize and counter-argue against the information, which improves the conditions for persuasion.

The problems with dual models

Such dual-mode or processing models, in my educated opinion, are bunk – at least in the way they are applied to humor. They are one of the reasons I have to blog in the first place [– I’ll deal with a lot more of them on here soon; they crop up everywhere!]. While it may be true that we can pay close attention or not, why does humor necessarily make us “less likely” to?

Chattoo just argued that audiences actively seek out the information, and that they do so “with active “truth-seeking motivations” – they process the civic information in such a way that sparks ‘reflective thoughts…issue interest, and information seeking.’” Further, she cites Garber, who believes that all the outrage and celebrations of comics these days is ample evidence that we’re not taking their words for granted. So where did that all go? Aren’t these all instances of audiences taking comedy as “serious information and news,” that they are “highly motivated” to seek out and absorb?

And who’s to say that they are unable to do so? Obviously we don’t shut off our brains when the comic starts talking.

Further, there’s a lot of evidence that people are lazy and process many messages peripherally – even “strong messages delivered in a serious way” – particularly when they are from your in-group, clan, tribe [there are lots of terms]. Robert Cialdini posits this when he talks about perceived expertise and liking effects – we process our perception of them rather than the message. So the question is: Why single out any form of discourse as “exclusively peripheral”? It has always struck me as dumb.

Serious messages hurt comedy

Chattoo returns to the idea that overt persuasion can hinder the comedy:

And in fact, by letting the audience in on the idea that the comedy message is designed to be “a message”—overt persuasion—the comedy becomes (perhaps ironically) less effective, triggering the cognitive route to persuasion, including scrutinizing the information or counter-arguing against the messages. For comedy to be a successful vehicle for persuasion in service of a serious social issue, it can’t be seen as trying too hard to explicitly persuade even if it comparts serious information.

There’s the false dichotomy that dual-mode or processing models run up against: either we are scrutinizing the joke, or we are laughing. This brings back the common interpretations of laughter: that it’s an unconscious, embodied response, not a result of thought. Further, such thinking suggests that we can’t react twice, reassess.

This would have it that after it invokes initial scrutiny, a joke can only produce “clapter” – or “humor support,” like when your significant other says, “that’s funny,” which is not the same as laughing. Further, after laughing we apparently can’t go back and think it through; or perhaps we’re just less likely to.

The return of the sleeper

These understandings are obviously bunk. The best evidence for this is that there might be that “sleeper effect of comedy—remembering and being influenced by the content of a funny message longer than a serious one.” Can we guarantee that every time we think of the message, we think of it in the same way? Can it’s influence not change over time?

An easy way to disprove this is the joke that you re-evaluate and laugh again at – the joke that gets funnier the more you think about it. If it can work that way, why can’t we find sense or wisdom in a joke after the laugh? I have.

Further, even if the above were historically true, idea that audiences are changing and becoming more active would call it into question: the fact that we tend to act in certain ways (that people have traditionally acted in certain ways) in no way means that can’t change (nor that it isn’t already changing).

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Cialdini, R. Influence: Science and Practice.

Zhang, Y., (1996). Responses to humorous advertising: The moderating effect of need for cognition. Journal of Advertising, 25(1), 15-32.

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Chattoo, The Laughter Effect II. B. How Comedy Works: Creating Feelings and Breaking Down Complexity

Posted on August 8, 2017 by nwilson

attracting attention & facilitating memory
feeling: comedy’s route to persuasion
entering complex social issues
breaking down social barriers
sharing with others

In this fourth installment, I run through her second and third points.

Feeling: Humor’s route to persuasion

Audiences can be persuaded through comedy—but comedy’s route to persuasion is more about feeling and caring than learning.

The ELM

Chattoo turns to Petty & Cacioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) here (especially as it has been applied by Zhang), which theorizes two routes of information processing: central and peripheral.

[W]hen individuals experience serious information and news—and are able to process the information and are highly motivated to do so—they use a central cognitive route of processing by focusing on the merits of the message itself. But in a humor context, attitude shifts may occur in response to peripheral or heuristic cues—such as emotional reactions, liking the message source and believing the source is credible and believable. Persuasion then moves through a different route than the one employed when encountering a strong message delivered in a serious way. As individuals enjoy the comedy message and the messenger, they are less likely to scrutinize and counter-argue against the information, which improves the conditions for persuasion.

The problems with dual models

And who’s to say that they are unable to do so? Obviously we don’t shut off our brains when the comic starts talking.

Serious messages hurt comedy

Chattoo returns to the idea that overt persuasion can hinder the comedy:

And in fact, by letting the audience in on the idea that the comedy message is designed to be “a message”—overt persuasion—the comedy becomes (perhaps ironically) less effective, triggering the cognitive route to persuasion, including scrutinizing the information or counter-arguing against the messages. For comedy to be a successful vehicle for persuasion in service of a serious social issue, it can’t be seen as trying too hard to explicitly persuade even if it comparts serious information.

The return of the sleeper

These understandings are obviously bunk. The best evidence for this is Chattoo’s own note that there might be that “sleeper effect of comedy—remembering and being influenced by the content of a funny message longer than a serious one.” Can we guarantee that every time we think of the message, we think of it in the same way? Can it’s influence not change over time?

Nevertheless, we’ll move on to Chattoo’s third point.

Entering complex social issues

Comedic treatment of serious issues helps make complex topics accessible—and amplifies serious information

Chattoo agrees with Popkin that people engage in cost-benefit analysis before actively seeking new information and getting involved in serious issues. Baum suggests that entertainment and comedic treatment of these issues might open the door, serving as a “gateway” to more serious attention, and Feldman and her colleagues have shown this to work. This last bunch argues that dealing with complex issues in an entertaining way can have two effects:

providing minimal (new) exposure to complex issues, and
providing an available knowledge framework that can help audiences make sense of serious information about the same issues in the future.

Chattoo is backtracking a bit, as she’s already noted (with Bartsch & Schneider) that audiences may find new information they would not otherwise encounter. However, the extra bit is that the exposure is “minimal,” that it’s not overwhelming and therefore can invite people into the conversation.

This second effect seems to recall the “priming effect” Chattoo previously noted (though she doesn’t make the connection herself), where we remember the characteristics of the issue that the comic focused on; this is part of the “framework” or terministic screen, comedy provides, from which we make sense of the issue. This also brings to mind the “sleeper effect” previously mentioned, where we remember more of a funny message, than a serious one – this “more” includes the frame or screen.

Taken together, these two effects, allow audiences to “pay greater attention to more serious news about [these social issues] over time.” Additionally,

[Feldman and colleagues have shown] this impact … as particularly great for those with less formal education and less understanding of or exposure to the issue in the first place [From her section on Satirical News].

The general idea that Chattoo ends with is that comedy complements the serious message.

One final note

There is a trend in studies of humor where the joke is taken as a screen or filter, a way of doing a serious message. This line of thinking makes makes comedy and humor a “surface” tactic, where the serious message intended is “depth;” it’s a hermeneutics of depth. The deeper motive is always given preference over the surface tactic.

We see this also in the distinction between entertainment and social or political comics. Humor and jokes are what they do – “surface” – but the material behind the jokes, the intent, is “depth.”

To clarify fully why this hermeneutics of depth bothers me so much, I should return to the base of this project: what happens when you take away all the assumptions of bona fide, serious speech? What is accomplished?

Jokes and stories are ways of communicating; humor is an intention, but it doesn’t have to be the only one. Comics have traditionally claimed they’re not trying to do anything serious. Such statements are thought to help create the humorous space, and push us into the humorous, peripheral mode of the ELM, and I’ve already critiqued that here – the times, they are a’changin’.

If the times are changing – if comics are trying to directly address social and political issues through humor (and they say they are), and if audiences are looking to comics for treatment of social and political issues (and Chattoo says they are) – then perhaps there is no such thing any more as a meaningful distinction between bona fide and non-bona fide. But that makes this project all the more important. What can happen when someone tells a joke? Yes, people can and do express their outrage and adulation on social media, but do they actually change behavior? And can we really expect more of so-called bona fide discourse?

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Bartsch, A., & Schneider, F. M. (2014). Entertainment and politics revisited: how non-escapist forms of entertainment can stimulate political interest and information seeking. Journal of Communication, 64(3), 369-396.

Baum, M. (2003). Soft news goes to war: Public opinion and American foreign policy in the new media age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Cialdini, R. Influence: Science and Practice.

Popkin, S.L. (1994). The reasoning voter: Communication and persuasion in presidential campaigns, 1st Edition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Zhang, Y., (1996). Responses to humorous advertising: The moderating effect of need for cognition. Journal of Advertising, 25(1), 15-32.

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Chattoo, The Laughter Effect II. A. How Comedy Works, Influence Begins and Attracting Attention

Posted on August 7, 2017 by nwilson

attracting attention & facilitating memory
feeling: comedy’s route to persuasion
entering complex social issues
breaking down social barriers
sharing with others

In this third installment, I run through her first point after beginning with her detour into “How influence begins.”

How influence begins: Actively seeking comedy

Chattoo points out an advantage that comedy has over other forms of storytelling and persuasion: “people actively seek out comedy.” This is an advantage, as obviously, without the ability to reach people, you can’t influence them.

Further, rather than being passive receivers of messages, she notes, with Young, that

Audiences who seek out smart, civically-focused comedy and entertainment may do so for more than one reason—to be entertained and to make sense of serious information…. And when audiences seek and use entertainment with active “truth-seeking motivations,” they process the civic information in such a way that sparks “reflective thoughts…issue interest, and information seeking.”

This is a key point that Chattoo fails to apply in future sections, and it marks a significant shift.

When I started writing my dissertation, I was appalled by the state of the research. Everyone assumed that no one looked to humor – and especially stand-up – for serious messages, for advice, for discussions of common problems and social issues. So when comics discussed such things, researchers treated it as if it didn’t matter – and perhaps it didn’t.

However, Chattoo (& Young) points out that we’re living in a different time; perhaps now people approach and read comedy differently. Perhaps they both laugh and think, are amused yet still informed and engaged. “The Zombie Apocalypse” paradoxical example still gives us pause, but perhaps the changes are coming.

Further, Chattoo notes that audiences may find new information they would not otherwise encounter (Bartsch & Schneider). As comics address more issues, it’s more likely that they hit on one that is new to some members of their audience.

Attracting attention and facilitating memory

Comedy can expose audiences to new messages – and can help them remember the information.

Advertisers have long known this: unlike advertisements using sex appeals, which can leave us unsure what was being advertised (or uncaring), humorous advertisements get our attention and help us to remember. However, more recent studies have linked this effect to political and civic communication as well (Xenos & Becker).

Sleeper effect

Chattoo notes that there’s a “sleeper effect of comedy—people remember and are influenced by the content of a funny message longer than a serious one” (here Chattoo cites Nabi, Moyer-Guse & Byrne). Yes, we’ve known at least since Aristotle that strong emotion is the key to memory. We shouldn’t be surprised that humor is no exception.

Priming effect

Further, humor fuels a “priming effect,” in which the “characteristics that had been primed, or made salient, from comedy” “influenced [the audience’s] future judgments” (Moy, Xenos & Hess). I’ll tie this in later in a way that Chattoo misses, but when a comic deals with the issues, they emphasize certain aspects, and these areas of emphasis can act as a frame, a lens,or as Kenneth Burke would have it, a terministic screen, through which the audience comes to see the issue. That ability to set the frame or screen might prove powerful.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Moy, P., Xenos, M. A., & Hess, V. K., (2005). Priming effects of late-night comedy. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 18(2), 199-210.

Nabi, R., Moyer-Guse, E. ́ & Byrne, S. (2007). All Joking Aside: A Serious Investigation into the Persuasive Effect of Funny Social Issue Messages. Communication Monographs. 74(1), 29-54.

Xenos, M.A., & Becker, A.B. (2009). Moments of zen: Effects of The Daily Show on information seeking and political learning. Political Communication, 26(3), 317-332.

Cases and Current Events/Comics Talking Shop/Stand Up Comedy

Salma Hindy Wants to Humanize Muslims

Posted on August 7, 2017 by nwilson

It’s good to see comics trying to do something with their power. One such is Salma Hindy. Steven Zhou interviews Salma Hindy for The Globe and Mail (7/28/2017), and talks about her strategies.

Her intent

Hindy’s friend, Selma Samy Akel, lays it out:

She’s helping humanize Muslims and comedy does that better than anything else, I think.

Hindy herself echoes this sentiment:

I feel like there’s nothing better than comedy to challenge people, because you can try to yell and scream, but it’s really much easier and more effective to just make them laugh.

While she references that “making them laugh” line that characterizes her audience as objects to be acted upon, Hindy’s comments remind us of another point that often is made: humor’s ability to cut through the clutter, to be heard [more on this in the works].

Her jokes

Hindy’s jokes often revolve around the social absurdities she deals with as a “Muslim woman in a politically charged time.” As Zhou notes,

She often makes fun of the “docile Middle Eastern woman” stereotype by making sarcastic reference to not being allowed to drive – an obvious reference to Saudi Arabia, where women can’t obtain a licence. Or she’ll mock the “Islamic terrorist” cliché by complaining that she never got the memo to attend any of the terrorists’ planning meetings, despite sharing the same religion with them.

“Am I not good enough for my own people or something?” she says, exasperated.

She drew loud laughs from the crowd with a story about tripping over some stairs one morning as she rushed to catch the GO train to work. When she got up from her fall and limped to the entrance, she noticed expressions of exaggerated horror on the faces of her fellow commuters.

“They obviously thought I looked like some victimized Muslim woman who sustained an injury from a husband or something,” she joked. “This is when I realized that, guys, being injured is clearly white privilege!

“Like, when other women sprain their ankles it’s an accident, but when it happens to me it gets attributed to the men in my family? C’mon!”

Such jokes tell a story of experience. To the extent that they’re relatable, it humanizes her and by extension, all Muslims like her. This is a bit straight out of Caty Borum Chattoo’s playbook [The Laughter Effect; working on getting a summary of the relevant bits up].

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Chattoo, The Laughter Effect I. B. The Why and Potential of Comedy

Posted on August 6, 2017 by nwilson

In May (2017), Caty Borum Chattoo, co-director of the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University and a comedy fan, released “The Laughter Effect: The [Serious] Role of Comedy in Social Change“, in which she summarizes the research and gives advice on how to use humor to further social issues. This is the second installment, where I talk about the situation as she describes it.

Why comedy – and why now?

Chattoo cites a gaggle of research on the rise of online media, and how The Daily Show has lead us into “a surge of comedy programs—both on TV and online” with profound cultural influence. She cites Garber’s article on comedians as public intellectuals and asks, can comedy “cut through the zeitgeist,” “act as a connector” for people, and are comics “—the observers and savants of the cultural landscape—seen as the true authentic truth-tellers?” This leads her to the conclusion:

If any element of this is true, the process by which comedy is understood and shared within the context of social issues—and the impact on audiences—is worth understanding more precisely.

Comedy’s [potentially powerful] role in social change

Defining social change

Following Singhal and Rogers, Chattoo defines social change as,

The process in which an alteration occurs in the structure and function of a social system. Social change can happen at the level of the individual, community, and organization or a society.

This gives her, she notes, a definition with maximum reach, where we can potentially see effects.

Defining comedy/humor

A major problem for me in Chattoo’s work, is that she uses comedy and humor interchangeably – when most theorists get more mileage by separating the two. In any case, she uses Palmer’s definition of humor as,

[E]verything that is actually or potentially funny, and the process by which this ‘funniness’ occurs (3).

This, again, gives her maximum scope. However, for the purposes of social change, she limits her scope to the following four types of comedy (which is actually five):

Satire
Scripted entertainment storytelling
Marketing and advertising
Stand-up and sketch comedy

I would argue that sketch comedy has more in common with “scripted entertainment storytelling” than stand-up, but we’ll roll with it for now.

She notes that although comedy has been “defined for thousands of years, and studying comedy is not new…. conclusively attempting to understand its connection to potential social change is relatively nascent.” I would concur; most traditional scholars dismiss humor for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the lack of proven effects, as the study of the CDC’s “The Zombie Apocalypse” social media public health marketing campaign displays.

Defining comedy’s role

Chattoo begins with three qualities comedy possesses, as commonly understood by theorists, which can “serve as a helpful guide for a contemporary understanding of entertainment comedy in service of serious social issues”:

attracting attention to raise tough topics (Downe and Freud)
situational awareness requiring a kind of shared cultural literacy on behalf of the audience (Allen)
providing a voice for the powerless, catharsis (Downe)

Specific to my purpose on this blog, on the first point, Chattoo points out the model represented by Comic Relief, in which a comedy show is used to attract attention and benefit a campaign. However, in this case, the comedy is just a lure, the jokes don’t necessarily have anything to do with the politics of the social issue.

On the latter points, Chattoo notes, with Goldman,

In 1970s America, amidst the tumultuous terrain of the Vietnam War, women’s equality movement and civil rights, stand-up comics and other comedy provided sarcastic, perhaps cathartic, social commentary on the juxtaposed absurdness of reality and the ideal.

For a lot of the social commentary coming from George Carlin and the like, it was best understood in the cultural moment, when people had both the awareness of the topics and a need for catharsis. But more than these traditional understandings, Chattoo wonders:

Comedy evokes hope and joy, emotions not typically imagined in more somber storytelling about complex social issues. But is emotional response enough to propel attitude change, beyond sharing and setting a media agenda? Will change-makers and storytellers be willing to take the risk, and if so, what should they know in order to make the attempt? And, importantly, what kind of “change”— along a spectrum of learning, feeling, sharing, and acting—is a feasible objective in terms of comedy’s role?

This serves to introduce her project, as from here she launches into her five common forms of influence (plus another factor – active audiences).

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Allen, L. (2014). Don’t forget, Thursday is test[icle]! The use of humour in sexuality education. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, 14(4), 387-399.

Downe, P. J. (1999). Laughing when it hurts: Humor and violence in the lives of Costa Rican prostitutes. Women’s Studies International Forum, 22(1), 63–78.

Goldman, N. (2013). Comedy and democracy: The role of comedy in social justice. Retrieved from http://animatingdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Humor%20Trend%20Paper.pdf

Singhal, A., and Rogers, E. (1999). Entertainment-education: a communication strategy for social change. New York, NY: Routledge.