Political Humour in the Blogosphere

A multimodal phenomenon combining multiple sign systems, net-mediated humour is structurally different from offline humour, as it takes place within the semiotic coordinates of a digital environment. No wonder, then, that an increasingly popular web genre such as the political blog should have been quick to exploit these new humorous text types and their richness of visual/verbal material in order to shape public opinion. Two politically divergent blogs of the British blogosphere – Guido Fawkes and Recess Monkey – have served as case studies to illustrate the range of semiotic resources through which humour is triggered and to show how humorous narratives are constructed in an online conversation. At present, however, despite some degree of interactivity and user-generated content, this kind of political commentary still tends to replicate the typical top-down form of discourse of institutional bodies and mainstream news media that independent blogs should allegedly attempt to overcome. Humour, besides, can be highly ambivalent whenever it trivialises political debate or hides commercial interests, downplaying the social function of ridicule in favour of marketing goals.