Political humor in cyberspace: mindful or mindless?

Abstract

Humor has undeniable power to engage people and capture their attention. When people respond to humor, they generally respond much more with their emotions than with their reason. Thus, humor can be an effective mode of getting messages across. In the age of cyberspace, humor comes in all kinds of form and substance, given the availability of various technologies and editing software that can be used to create and produce these materials. During the 2008 Malaysian general elections, an unusual number of humorous political materials were posted in cyberspace creating a new form of expression and freedom never before seen in the country. This paper examines a random selection of such postings and deconstructs their functions and meanings. Using linguistic, communication and rhetorical analyses, the paper reveals that political humor in cyberspace is communicatively sharp and intelligent although nasty and sometimes vulgar in its linguistic devices. It is argued that the structure, form, content and meaning 'Of such political humor serves a highly rhetorical function and subsequently vibrates a persuasive power that the conventional media are unable to do. Thus, seemingly mindless humor is actually a mindful effort by 'revolutionaries' promoting inevitable political change in Malaysia.