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Transnational TV Comedy Audiences

This article addresses academic debates around the relationship between nationality and humor through an empirical case study of national and transnational TV comedy audiences. Based on data from twenty-five focus groups held in Norway and Britain, it examines audience talk around interlinguistic subtitling and articulated responses to two case study programs: The Office (BBC2, 2001—3) and Nissene pa Laven (TVNorge, 2001). Discussing constraints associated with transnational TV comedy, the analysis underlines national differences in engagement with subtitles but argues that participants tended to underestimate the ability of transnational viewers to comprehend and enjoy the case study texts. Drawing on theories of humor and nationality, the article suggests that the recurring emphasis on cultural difference served to maintain nation-based us—them distinctions.This article addresses academic debates around the relationship between nationality and humor through an empirical case study of national and transnational TV comedy audiences. Based on data from twenty-five focus groups held in Norway and Britain, it examines audience talk around interlinguistic subtitling and articulated responses to two case study programs: The Office (BBC2, 2001—3) and Nissene på Låven (TVNorge, 2001). Discussing constraints associated with transnational TV comedy, the analysis underlines national differences in engagement with subtitles but argues that participants tended to underestimate the ability of transnational viewers to comprehend and enjoy the case study texts. Drawing on theories of humor and nationality, the article suggests that the recurring emphasis on cultural difference served to maintain nation-based us—them distinctions.

Negotiating generic hybridity: Audience engagement with The Office

This article addresses the under-researched area of TV comedy audiences. Previous literature in this field has tended to focus on how viewers interpret comedic representations (e.g. Cooper 2003; Jhally and Lewis 1992; Moy, Xenos, and Hess 2005), but recent work has also considered other aspects. For example, Deborah Jermyn (2004) examines the pleasures of female Sex and the City fans, Jonathan Gray (2006) looks at audience engagement with parody in The Simpsons, and Giselinde Kuipers (2006) examines Dutch comedy viewing in relation to taste. This study, then, contributes to this expansion of the field by exploring the ways in which British viewers engaged with a hybrid sitcom, The Office (BBC2). Along with sitcoms like Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO) and Kath and Kim (ABC/Channel 7), The Office can be positioned within a genre development that has abandoned many established sitcom conventions and is ‘embracing a more naturalistic style, using the visual style of documentary with mobile, fly-on-the-wall camera work’ (Davis 2008, 357). Describing the resulting form as ‘comedy vérité’, Brett Mills emphasizes that The Office challenges the cultural association between documentary and ‘authenticity’:

Laughing in the Face of Climate Change? Satire as a Device for Engaging Audiences in Public Debate

Satire has long offered social and political commentary while entertaining audiences. Focusing on a Canadian stage play and its local reception, this article considers some of the key benefits and challenges of using satire to promote public engagement with climate change science. It demonstrates that satire can promote active and positive engagement with climate change debates. However, using satire risks confining representations to the humorous realm and requires communicators to consider the humor preferences of different publics. The article proposes recommendations for using satire in science communications.

Laughing Together?: TV Comedy Audiences and the Laugh Track

his study contributes to the underexplored area of TV comedy audiences with an examination of viewer perceptions of the laugh track. Drawing on previous literature on the historical development of this device and on current practices in TV comedy production, I examine concurrences and discrepancies in a comparison of the intended functions of the laugh track and the ways in which it has been perceived by “viewers at home.” The discussion is based on my analysis of data from twenty-five focus groups with British and Norwegian research participants and is part of a larger project that examines the significance of gender and nationality in audience engagement with TV comedy. Laugh tracks were discussed in all of these focus groups, and while it was covered by a predesigned question scheduled for the final part of the discussion, participants in the British groups often introduced this topic early in the session. This indicates the perceived significance of this device for many British participants. My analysis of these debates focuses on two emerging themes: first, the idea that the sitcom or sketch show laugh track permits or demands a reciprocal response, and second, distinctions between authenticity and artifice in the use of such laugh tracks. Further, the article examines nation-based differences in focus group debates around these two issues, arguing that diverging viewpoints can be linked to ideas of nationally distinct humor and “national comedy” as well as to historical differences in the two countries’ TV comedy production. However, prior to this discussion I consider previous academic literature on the laugh track and outline the key methodological issues of this study.

(Un)funny women: TV comedy audiences and the gendering of humour

Based on data from an empirical study of TV comedy audiences in Britain and Norway, this article examines the ways in which focus group participants constructed gendered distinctions in relation to comedy. Analysing talk about two sketch shows dominated by female performers, it argues that both male and female participants represented such ‘women’s comedy’ as having limited appeal for male viewers. The article explores the assumptions underlying this perspective, and highlights a perceived conflict between femininity and comedic performance. Focusing in on the minority of participants who explicitly devalued female comedy performers, it examines how these viewers employed discursive strategies to promote this view while negotiating the focus group setting. The article draws on feminist work on humour and comedy, as well as studies of taste and television audiences.Based on data from an empirical study of TV comedy audiences in Britain and Norway, this article examines the ways in which focus group participants constructed gendered distinctions in relation to comedy. Analysing talk about two sketch shows dominated by female performers, it argues that both male and female participants represented such ‘women’s comedy’ as having limited appeal for male viewers. The article explores the assumptions underlying this perspective, and highlights a perceived conflict between femininity and comedic performance. Focusing in on the minority of participants who explicitly devalued female comedy performers, it examines how these viewers employed discursive strategies to promote this view while negotiating the focus group setting. The article draws on feminist work on humour and comedy, as well as studies of taste and television audiences.

This Pussy Grabs back: Humour, Digital Affects and Women’s Protest

Abstract The “affective” turn has enabled many scholars to theorise media representations not only as texts that can be distantly decoded but also as a matter of emotional attachments, intensities of feelings, synesthetic sensations, and embodied experiences. Yet, what has been less often theorized is how this affective meaningmaking is (re)shaped by the dynamic and interactive nature of social networking systems such as Facebook or Twitter. How do images and the affective qualities that “stick” to them, travel and transform through user engagement where “users grab images and technologies by which they are grabbed in return” (Paasonen, Carnal Resonance 178; Senft 2008). We aim to explore this question further through examples of humorous images from the January 2017 Women’s March, considered within the digital contexts of Facebook and Twitter. Social movement scholars argue that emotional engagement can be a powerful and positive motivating factor in getting people involved in political life, and we here suggest that these humorous images can move the reader in new critical directions, encouraging them to challenge systems of inequality and oppression in contemporary society.

TV Comedy Audiences and Media Technology A Comparative Study of Britain and Norway

Drawing on focus group data, this article explores the ways in which British and Norwegian viewers constructed the role of media technology in their engagement with TV comedy. Arguing that TV comedy on pre-recorded DVDs tended to have far greater significance for British participants than Norwegian participants, the article maintains that this technology had different sets of cultural meanings in the two national contexts. The discussion examines factors that might contribute to this national difference, and considers how DVD usage may affect audience engagement. While DVDs have been seen to address viewers as fan consumers or collectors, most of these users primarily associated this technology with the convenience of timeshifting. Along with VHS and video files, DVDs were seen to offer viewers greater control over when and how they wanted to engage with TV comedy. Copyright

Unruly Women and Carnivalesque Countercontrol: Offensive Humor in Mediated Social Protest

At the Women’s March in January 2018, many protest posters featured offensive jokes at the expense of Trump’s body and behavior. Such posters were shared widely online, much to the amusement of the movement’s supporters. Through a close analysis of posts on Instagram and Twitter, we explore the role of “vulgar” and “offensive” humor in mediated social protest. By highlighting its radical and conservative tendencies, we demonstrate how we can understand these practices of offensive humor as a contemporary expression of “the carnivalesque” that is complexly intertwined with social change.