Internet humour flourishes on social network sites, special humour-dedicated sites and on web pages focusing on edutainment or infotainment. Its increasing pervasiveness has to do
The article aims to validate the main presuppositions of the theory of ethnic humour (see first and foremost Davies 1990, but also Davies 1987, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2002) in contemporary Estonian joke material. The author will pose hypotheses which will contest Davies' conclusions on regularities in ethnic humour. Davies' conclusions are largely built on the main binary oppositions and anecdote scripts manifest in mainly British humour tradition and the analysis of their social and societal factors, though he also analyses jokes about Jews (Davies 2002), briefly touches upon the ethnic humour (or, to be more precise, the lack of it, Davies 1998) of the Japanese and draws parallels from the entire English-speaking humour area (the anecdotes of the British, Welsh, Scots, Irish, Americans, Canadians, and Australians). Davies has not studied Eastern European jokes in greater length (except for Polish humour, which he introduces in comparing the American anecdotes about the Poles in Poland or among the Polish immigrants in the United States). This study aims to add to Davies' theory of ethnic humour valuable comparative and additional material on joke scripts, characters and the potential reasons behind their being chosen in non-English-speaking (and a politically more turbulent) culture area.
Jokes, ethnic slurs and parodies often occur in Internet comments, as the general feeling of anonymity allows for and even favours balancing on the verge of the acceptable and the unacceptable. Thus, a humorously intended comment can be perceived as aggressive by other Internet users. This possibility is further enhanced by the fact that the electronic media in general and computer mediated communication (CMC) in particular lacks non-verbal conversational cues that would signal the intentions of the communicator with greater, though not absolute, accuracy. The interrelations between online humour and aggression have so far escaped the attention of researchers, although scholarly discussions concerning these two phenomena in face-to-face interaction have been frequent. This paper analyses comment sequences in the Delfi news portal (www.delfi. ee) from 2000 to 2007. Delfi is an Estonian online news website known for its liberal attitude towards commenting. The aim of the article is to describe the boundaries between humour and verbal aggressiveness and address the notion of failed humour through its occurrence in online communication. In addition to presenting the patterns of humorous and aggressive modalities in comment sequences, some cases in which humour changes into aggressiveness are analysed.
Abstract:The focus of this paper is on the nature and role of online aggression in larger scale societal tensions and its interaction with the use of humor. The study analyses expressions of online aggression in different online environments. The study involves content analysis of online media from discussion forums and less regulated social media like blogs. The material was gathered for a research coordinated by the Ministry of Justice in Estonia, and it covers the time span of eight years: 2000-2007. The discussion addresses three types of sources in particular (1) anonymous comments (2) thematic forums and social networking media, and (3) blogs. This allows for insights into how anonymity affects the contents of electronic utterances, including the degree of aggression in them. We aim to describe the phenomenon of online aggressiveness in general: its extent, content, and context. Attention is given to how verbal aggression on the Internet goes hand in hand with banter, or friendly teasing. An overview of the flaming/ joking patterns in the commentaries leads to the questions on how humour is embedded in Internet flaming, and finally to the dynamics of "us" and "them" in the material. In this way, the paper touches upon the very narrow and hard-todefine line between aggression and humour.
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