Abstract
This article uses the concept of cultural citizenship to understand engagement in political comedy. The concept stresses popular culture’s value for identity and community construction, as well as the importance of learning about and respecting others. Using empirical work on Swedish young adult political comedy audiences in the form of data from in-depth interviews and focus groups, the article argues for analysis of engagement in various discursive forms, in studies of media and citizenship. More specifically, the article answers the question: which citizenship values are defended by political comedy engagement? In order to identify such values, the study focuses on the ways in which audience members construct identity and community, in relation to their political comedy engagement. Four themes of community construction are found: lacking social contexts, ideology and strong emotions, knowledge and education, and irony as a discursive mode and disposition. From these, the values of playful and emotional modes of engagement are conceptualized. The final parts of the article argue for those modes’ legitimacy and significance – both in relation to engagement in, and through, political comedy.
Introduction: community construction and political comedy
During the past decades, various forms of political comedy have become increasingly popular. A growing body of research analyses this from various perspectives, stressing that humorous treatment of politics and political culture is ubiquitous to social and political life. Political comedy includes the discursive modes of satire, raillery, mockery and spoofing (Corner et al., 2013) and is found in commercial and public service media; in broadcast, print and digital forms such as graphic novels, activist videos, high-budget television, mainstream and alternative stand-up comedy (Hariman, 2008). At its core, these various kinds of comedy are based on jokes about politics, politicians and political culture. Joking, in turn, is ‘a specific and meaningful practice that the audience and the joke-teller recognize as such’ (Critchley, 2002: 4). This means that there must be a shared, implicit understanding of the social world, and whatever area the joke is about.
Humour and comedy are inclusive and exclusive, as they play off common frames of reference (cf. Critchley, 2002). Some humour is universal, or can travel between different contexts, while some is highly particular, bound to very specific contexts (Critchley, 2002; Davies, 2011). As issues of difference, representation and participation have become important topics of contemporary debate and research, scholars argue for the need to further understand processes of inclusion and exclusion, and their relation to media form, subjectivity and power (Corner, 2011; Hermes, 2005; Vega and Boele van Hensbroek, 2012). This article is about audience engagement in political comedy, wherein some stress its inclusive and educational qualities (Day, 2011; Jones, 2013a) and others focus on exclusion, often relating to racist humour (Billig, 2005a; Malmqvist, 2015). This paradoxical, inclusive yet excluding character of humour and political comedy is explored in this article, through the idea of cultural citizenship.
Cultural citizenship is used to defend the right of ‘cultural recognition’, meaning ‘the right to know and speak’ (Miller, 2007: 35), which is contrasted with other types of citizenship rights. While definitions vary and tend to highlight quite different aspects of citizenship, studies of cultural citizenship tend to share a focus on cultural identity and cultural practices, and a concern for issues of participation, inclusion and exclusion (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012). In the study of popular culture, Hermes (2005, 2006, also see Hermes and Müller 2014) has used it to focus specifically on identity and community construction within audiences, turning the spotlight towards those who engage with culture, in order to understand how subjective constructions of identity, inclusion and exclusion relate to citizenship. Here, cultural citizenship is defined as ‘the process of bonding and community building, and reflection on that bonding, that is implied in partaking of the text-related practices of reading, consuming, celebrating, and criticizing offered in the realm of (popular) culture’ (Hermes, 2005: 10). Arguing that engagement in political comedy may encourage citizenship among young adults (Doona, 2016; Jones, 2013b), this article aims to conceptualize this further, by asking: which citizenship values are defended by political comedy engagement?
Cultural citizenship is a theoretical concept and analytical framework that links audience engagement in popular culture to democratic citizenship. Cultural citizenship values, then, are values that complement other kinds of citizenship values, some of which are written into law in democratic countries and can be considered expected aspects of any democracy, such as the right to vote; and some that are not, but work as democratic ideals or norms. In this sense, cultural citizenship is placed alongside political, social and civil or economic citizenship (Marshall and Bottomore, 1992). Political citizenship values refer to the right to participate in political decision-making processes; civil or economic citizenship values refer to the right to ‘participate in the economy as a free producer and consumer’ (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012: 198f) and social citizenship values ‘acknowledge that society has a collective responsibility for the well-being of its subject through projects such as the social welfare state’ (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012: 199; also see Marshall and Bottomore, 1992). As such, cultural citizenship is relevant to fields outside of media and cultural studies as well, like political communication, wherein news media and political PR often are the main focus.
In this article, cultural citizenship is used as a theoretical concept that links audience engagement in political comedy to democratic citizenship. Through the study of audience members’ subjective constructions of community, themes of community construction are identified. These themes all illustrate ways in which the audiences’ constructions are specific (yet not exclusive) to political comedy as a genre. In different ways, they correspond to the general cultural citizenship values developed by Murdock (1999), who identifies four main rights, here described briefly. First, the right to information, second, the right of experiences, which entails media and popular culture’s ability and responsibility to represent diverse experiences, facilitating learning and identity construction. Third, the rights of knowledge, wherein information and experience are integrated, developing ‘interpretative schemes that bridge the universal and the particular’ (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012: 206), to link everyday experience and mediated experiences of others to abstract forms of information and debate. Finally, rights of participation, stressing citizens’ abilities to make their voices heard and be part of societal meaning production (Murdock, 1999). This study builds upon Murdock’s rights, in identifying an overarching right to engage with political and social issues in a variety of modes. While news and current affairs programming promote certain ‘rational’ ways of engaging, this article’s themes of community construction illustrate how these young adults require something more, alongside that.
The following sections continue the methodological argument for focusing on audience engagement, and describe the methods used in the study. Then, cultural citizenship as a concept is mapped out further, raising some of the relevant theoretical points. The subsequent analysis focuses on the themes of community and identity construction, followed by a section wherein the specific values of political comedy engagement are identified and conceptualized, arguing the larger point that engagement in different generic forms may promote different kinds of citizenship values.
Methodology and methods
In line with the idea that research on cultural citizenship needs to focus on audience engagement, this study is based on a qualitative, contextualizing research design, with the aim to achieve analytic generalization in relation to the research question. Much of the previous research on political comedy audiences and citizenship has sought to determine media effects, relating to attitudes, voting behaviour or knowledge levels (cf. Amarasingam, 2011; Baumgartner and Morris, 2006; Holbert et al., 2011; Knobloch-Westerwick and Lavis, 2017). This study uses a different methodological approach since it aims for an in-depth understanding of subjective audience constructions. This serves the purpose of exposing the ‘blind spots’ of research on media and citizenship, avoiding the ‘clos(ing) down’ of possible meanings of media and media engagement (Jones, 2013b: 4).
The study rests on data from interviews and focus group sessions with 31 Swedish young adults (18–35 years old); 18 in-depth interviews and two focus group sessions with six and seven participants, respectively. The combination of interviews and focus groups was a part of the initial research design, as they were assumed to provide different kinds of data; focus groups providing a more organic type of discussion, highlighting interaction, and interviews allowing participants to speak more freely and independently. However, when comparing the data, no clear differences appeared. The main difference was that focus group participants spontaneously ventured into some of the topics without prompting.
The definition of ‘young adult’ varies in research, and most would define 30 years as the maximum age for young adulthood. However, this study has used 35 as a cut-off, due to recent concerns, related to the concept of age in contexts where ‘life phases’ (Andersson, 2007) seem to be more relevant. In Sweden, contemporary young people don’t live lives associated with adulthood until their thirties (including having children, stable salaries and a more permanent home), that is, later than prior generations (Andersson, 2007). This in turn affects the sense of stability and self-image, everyday routines including media habits, and other aspects that are relevant to studies of media and citizenship. In the case of this study, for instance, only one participant had children (a newborn at that time) and only a few had permanent employment.
Recruitment adverts asked for participants who regularly follow the Swedish public service radio programme Tankesmedjan (SR P3, 2010–) and/or the American cable television programme The Daily Show (Comedy Central, 1996–). 1 These programmes share some characteristics, like frequency (four per week) and a focus on news satire; 2 and differ in others, such as media form, country and mode of finance. They were chosen based on their target audiences of teens and young adults, and their popularity among young adults in Sweden at the time, assessed through ratings and pilot interviews. Recruitment of focus group participants and interviewees (referred to as such henceforth) ended after 18 interviewees and two focus group sessions, as the data was deemed theoretically saturated at that point. Although specific programmes were mentioned in recruitment adverts, focus group participants and interviewees were asked to speak about other kinds of media they considered political comedy. This was a part of the research design, as the wider study aimed to explore the hybridity of political comedy – but it did complicate recruitment, as there was risk of a priori defining the genre. This problem is described as the dilemma of genre studies (Neale, 2000); however, genre is important because it affects audiences’ modes of engagement, by telling them what to expect (Corner, 2011; Hill, 2007). But because of these issues, it had to be approached carefully during the fieldwork process, and in the subsequent analysis.
Interviews and focus-group sessions were semi-structured, to aid the exploratory focus and stimulate a conversation-like situation. They began with an introduction and basic questions, prompting talk about programmes and comedians. They then moved into issues that are more complex, such as learning, definitions of political comedy and satire, what image of politics comedy might portray, and issues related to the participants’ own relationship to political engagement and politics.
Keeping with an exploratory focus on audience subjectivity, the transcript data was coded to find discursive themes (Schrøder et al., 2003), guided by the theoretical focus and the areas discussed by participants: ‘identity/community construction’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘political engagement/citizenship’. This first stage of coding, along with the second stage, wherein codes were divided into sub-codes, served two main purposes: to represent and access other similar passages, aiming for retention of data, rather than reduction (Bazeley, 2013). The third stage worked as a kind of distilling process that resulted in analytical categories. For example, ‘identity/community construction’ was broken down into subcategories that focused on self-identity, others’ identity, community and feelings of exclusion. The data from those subcategories was then grouped into the themes of community construction presented in this article, after an additional literature review and close reading.
Cultural citizenship and engagement
Cultural citizenship as a concept aids the understanding of how shared identities are constructed within audiences (Hermes, 2005). Beyond the work of Murdock, it has been used to conceptualize rights associated with popular culture specifically, including people’s right to belong to a community wherein they can express views and preferences, and the responsibly to respect the taste of others, and understand how they differ from their own (Hermes, 2005). Different media forms are suitable to the needs of different groups (Hermes, 1998), meaning that the exploration of cultural citizenship values must include an awareness of genre and form, as well as of the subjectivities that these forms attract.
The focus of studies of cultural citizenship has varied greatly, arguably because cultural studies and media studies encompasses different perspectives on media and power. While scholars like Hermes (2005) and Hartley (1996) have emphasized subjective meaning-making in relation to identity and community construction, Miller’s (2007) contribution represents the concern with political economy and cultural citizenship. He makes the point that the mentioned right to ‘know and speak’ (Miller, 2007: 35) should be reconceptualized in the context of a deregulated media market, using textual analysis of American cable channels The Food Network and The Weather Channel to show how they fail to report effectively and critically on issues like food policy and climate change. While these are important issues, this doesn’t capture the bottom-up focus of cultural citizenship, which places emphasis on ignored media audiences and publics, and exposes the previously mentioned ‘blind spots’ of media and citizenship studies. Not only is there a scholarly bias against certain genres, but in some cases against hybridization of genres (Mittel, 2004) which reinforces problematic notions of information as separate from entertainment and represents a top-down perspective on meaning-making.
Cultural citizenship is related to political comedy in a few studies, yet not with a direct focus on audience engagement. Riegert (2015) uses it to understand non-commercial Lebanese, Egyptian and Kuwaiti bloggers (including satirical) as counterpublics. Similarly, El Marzouki (2015) emphasizes counterpublics when exploring Moroccan user-generated satire. These examples are vital to the understanding of political comedy and cultural citizenship in various forms and contexts. However, they do not focus on audience engagement, which is important in studies of cultural citizenship – a recurring argument throughout this article. The strength of the concept lies in its focus on the subjective meaning-making of audiences and publics, and its ability to expose the ‘blind spots’ of previous citizenship studies. By studying how audiences and publics consider themselves as belonging or not belonging to various kinds of communities, we can understand citizenship better. There is no way around it: to identify gaps in previous studies of media and citizenship, actual people and their everyday engagement and contexts need to be in focus.
In other words, cultural citizenship is a response to what has been lacking in modern era models of citizenship, which promote a rationally informed citizenship ideal. Globalization and the expansion of multiculturalism have emphasized how issues of community, difference and varying subject positions are important areas of study, and developments in popular and digital media has created new possibilities for individuals and marginalized groups to express themselves in public and be politically engaged (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012). While scholars like Hermes (2014, 2005), Miller (1998, 2007) and before that, Hartley (cf. 1996) have emphasized popular culture, scholars like Stevenson (2003, 2009, 2012) and Delanty (2002, 2007) have concentrated on processes of learning about others, and respecting difference. These foci connect in theorizing the importance of citizens’ abilities to deliberate on ‘matters of common concern’ (Stevenson, 2012: 35) as part of their everyday lives, and connecting this to wider communities’ abilities to function democratically.
Themes of community construction
Stevenson’s emphasis on citizens’ abilities to deliberate on matters of common concern fits well with the findings of this study of political comedy engagement, since young adult audience members learn about political issues and debates through what they consider enjoyable modes of communication. Enjoyment is important as it helps ensure regular engagement, and as the following sections show, this enjoyment relates to community construction in different ways.
Lacking social context
The first theme of community construction focuses on social context, and includes constructions of political comedy as a kind of substitute friend. Typical in this theme is an ambivalent construction of citizenship, revealing a kind of outsider identity, wherein audience members see themselves as different from friends, families or colleagues, in relation to political interest. As such, the theme is characterized by reflexive dialogues on subject positions (Burkitt, 2014) within local social communities, which the following quotes illustrate. The few first quotes come from a focus group, and the last one is from an interview:
What do you think it would be like if political comedy didn’t exist?
I think less people would be interested in politics, because it makes politics more accessible. (…) Like Tankesmedjan, even if you’re not listening actively, if it’s only on in the background, I still think you’re a little bit aware, maybe it plants a seed, that you’re getting this information that you wouldn’t otherwise (23 yrs., student in media and communication, focus group 1).
I think [Tankesmedjan] sustains political engagement. Because for me, I work at the local council, and I don’t really feel like I can share my opinions with anyone. I may be a bit more passionate than my colleagues. […] In those moments [Tankesmedjan] can actually work as a little friend (34 yrs., architect, focus group 1).
It would be fun if someone … actually got [my interest in political comedy]. But it’s my thing, you know, I go for it. It’s kind of tiresome when people don’t understand, like, ‘is it OK if I come later because I just have to watch the finish of this’ and they’re like ‘you watch that?’ and you’re like ‘Um, yeah! It’s funny! Accept it!’ (interviewee Freja, 22, social work student).
Arguably, other kinds of political media do not provide the same kind of input, as they cannot address audiences in the same affectively charged mode as humour and comedy do (Corner et al., 2013). Audiences’ enjoyment of comedy connects to aesthetic, moral, social and other types of judgement in a profoundly personal way, illustrating ‘comedy’s inextricable relationship with personhood’, and shared humour as a ‘foundational ingredient of friendship, trust and intimacy’ (Friedman and Kuipers, 2013: 193). Hence, this theme positions political comedy and its implicit audience as representative of the actual audience, of the fact that there are others ‘out there’ who engage with the political in a context of enjoyment and emotion.
Interestingly, none of the study’s participants claim to watch or listen to the programmes together with others. A few mention speaking to friends about certain segments or jokes, but for the most part, it seemed to be a solitary activity, conducted mostly at home or on commutes.
Ideology and strong emotions
The second theme is ideology and strong emotions. While some constructions stress the enjoyment derived from political comedy, others problematize it based on an analysis of the comedy’s underlying ideological message. This occurs when there is disagreement with the presumed intention of the message, prompting a response characterized as unlaughter, meaning a significant absence of amusement (Billig, 2005b). The following interviewee quotes represent this theme: [Comedians] who claim to be apolitical, but really are [political], they tend not to share my views, and they … make fun of social phenomena that I don’t think should be made fun of. Like kicking those who are down (interviewee Eva, 30, doctoral student). Like the difference between what’s satire and what’s just … kicking someone who’s already down. I think that power aspect is very … interesting, and I don’t really know, it’s an ongoing thought I have: that it’s not funny when political comedy in any way makes fun of those who are defenceless or vulnerable. (interviewee Dennis, 24, journalism student).
In this theme, satirical political comedy, meaning political comedy with serious intent (Corner et al., 2013), is constructed as more enjoyable, but also potentially problematic. Consequently, the theme centres on ideological reflexivity that leads to unlaughter responses in relation to political comedy that does not seem to align with the ideological perspective of the audience member. Unlaughter captures what happens when individuals are unable or unwilling to express amusement in relation to comedy (Billig, 2005b), and illustrates communities’ boundary maintenance (Malmqvist, 2015; Smith, 2009). Hence, audiences use their own reactions and the reactions of others to assess belonging and difference.
Importantly, audience members do so to various degrees: strong ideological conviction does not automatically lead to unlaughter responses to certain jokes. It depends on the emotional component associated with the enjoyment of humour. While humour at its core often rests on the creation of incongruity (Critchley, 2002; Davies, 2011), enjoyment derives from what Morreall (1987) describes as the understanding of such incongruity and a ‘simultaneous enjoyment of something else’ (p. 216). If this ‘something’ is somehow associated with a strong emotion, amusement may be blocked (Morreall, 1987), which is why certain kinds of humour can seem benign to some, and serious to others.
In this theme, comedians who joke at the expense of marginalized groups are constructed as part of a wider societal problem of inequality. The cognitive disengagement that comedy requires for us to enjoy it, wherein we adjust engagement to comedic or ironic modes of address, and lower expectations of factuality or civility (Morreall, 2005: 75), is overridden by prior engagement in other issues. This prompts unlaughter responses and marks community boundaries: between those who feel strongly, and those who do not. This is pertinent to the cultural citizenship discussion of citizens’ abilities to respect differences and understand the perspective of others, as laughter and unlaughter responses are constructed as signs of respect or disrespect. Furthermore, this is dynamic, as emotional intensities change in the short and long terms.
Knowledge and education
Within the third theme, two distinct types of constructions are identified: those that emphasize political comedy as educational, where audiences acquire knowledge, versus those that emphasize how political comedy engagement requires certain levels of knowledge for it to be enjoyable. The following quotes are representative of the two, in different ways: since I started [listening to Tankesmedjan] I’ve got some kind of gender perspective and that type of thing […]. Like now, I’m training to get my driver’s license. And I’m reading this textbook, and it rubs me the wrong way, because everyone who is mentioned is a he. ‘He the lorry driver, he the tram driver, he, he, he!’ What about throwing in a ‘she’ or even a ‘s-he’?! (interviewee Harald, 18, upper secondary school pupil). I think a lot of political satire has a function for people working politically, but outside the system, I mean single issues extra-parliamentary groups. Those interested in asylum seekers’ rights, or public health or the environment. Like that. Those who […] don’t want to tie themselves to a specific political party. It kind of opens up for a greater political field. And in a way I think [political comedy] is easier to access, and we need that. Because it has this inclusive function (interviewee Eva, 30, doctoral student). There are things that, if you don’t understand them, you won’t find them funny. […] there are things on Tankesmedjan that will be extremely boring if you don’t know anything about, for instance, what the different political parties stand for (interviewee Veronika, 31, project co-ordinator). I think the fun part is getting to feel clever. Like going to see Eddie Izzard … some of it is all about feeling like ‘haha, I know about this’ and ‘I’ve kind of out-smarted the system’ […] It flatters you. You’re in a group and that makes it excluding. Because those who don’t feel that … for me to feel clever I have to compare myself to someone [less clever]. (interviewee Dennis, 24, journalism student)
In both kinds of constructions, political comedy engagement makes audiences feel educated and clever. In this sense, political comedy is empowering, aiding audiences in recognizing their knowledge, and developing it. So it answers to the importance of learning, emphasized by cultural citizenship; but it also underscores that there is a need for a double focus, as certain groups have the privilege to define what should be counted as education and knowledge, and what should not.
Irony as discursive mode and disposition
The final theme focuses on the ironic mode of discourse found in contemporary political comedy (Day, 2011), and the ironic disposition that can be connected to it (Coleman, 2013b; Rorty, 1989). Irony in both forms is constructed as an important aspect of the enjoyment of political comedy, as a kind of sociolect that creates a sense of belonging or difference, socially and discursively. The following quotes represent this theme: And I really believe, [that] if you label Tankesmedjan as silly or nonsense, and say that young people are only interested in being silly, that they can’t … like get into the real political issues or whatever … well, then you risk making them see themselves that way as well. Instead of seeing [Tankesmedjan] as a way into [political issues] (interviewee Karolina, 22, political science student). But with Bill Maher, and Jon Stewart too, it’s very clear that they’re saying something because they believe it. That’s kind of why I don’t like Stephen Colbert
3
very much, because he keeps doing this thing where he’s just a character. And I can’t really tell when he’s just being ironic, through this character who is super ironic, and when he is being the character, and the character is being ironic. I can never tell the difference (interviewee Paul, 22, chemistry student). Maybe they can’t understand, some people don’t understand irony. I have a colleague who doesn’t understand irony; we were sitting there, laughing at him for like five minutes the other day, because he didn’t understand that we were joking. […] But this guy, he doesn’t have any idea about irony as a concept, it’s so funny! (interviewee Linus, 26, political science student)
Irony, both as a textual form and as a disposition, is highly divisive, which is what makes it an important element of community construction (Day, 2011; Hutcheon, 1994). Some wonder if irony can be blamed for young peoples’ presumed disengagement from politics (Dahlgren, 2009; Hart and Hartelius, 2007), or further, see it as a general loss of values (Hutcheon, 1994). Among the studied audience, it was not the existence of irony that was divisive, but the ways it is constructed or misunderstood. Hence, these young adults are aware of its divisiveness, yet either avoid it or defend it against those who don’t ‘understand’ it.
Coleman (2013b) considers the ironic disposition to be a late modern ‘democratic distaste for epistemological foundationalism’ (p. 383), which is prevalent throughout this study’s data. For example, critical constructions of conventional news journalisms’ claims of epistemic authority were prevalent. Such critical constructions of knowledge claims are in contrast to the exclusion based on knowledge, mentioned above. Coupled with these kinds of critical constructions is a kind of ‘media savvy’ that includes a basic understanding of media production and logic, which is an important aspect of political comedy engagement, illustrating the ‘serious’ value of irony (Combe, 2015; Jones, 2010).
The values of political comedy engagement
The following section uses the identified themes of community construction to conceptualize what values are associated with young adult political comedy engagement. As Stevenson (2003) puts it, the concept of cultural citizenship asks ‘how is it possible to maintain solidarity with others while emphasizing the creativity of the self, or indeed to pursue justice while recognizing difference?’ (p. 33); this entails the empirical study of a wide variety of spaces where various aspects of citizenship are claimed. This study emphasizes political comedy as such a space, underscoring the importance of problematizing various kinds of media engagement as relevant to various groups.
For instance, audiences that construct themselves as outsiders due to their political interest, as found in the theme of lacking social context, are in need of ‘friendly’ political media, which partially mirrors the kind of political engagement that others find in their everyday social interaction. Hence, there is a need for political media that recognizes the social-emotional aspects of political engagement. Similarly, the theme of ideology and strong emotions stresses the importance of having the right to engage with political and social issues in an emotionally charged mode. The theme of knowledge and education stresses the right to learn about issues in playful, non-goal-oriented modes, and the right to recognize already acquired knowledge. The theme of irony stresses the right to engage through one’s preferred discursive mode and/or in accordance with one’s critical, ironic disposition. In other words, depending on what theme of community construction we focus on, different modes of engagement need to be recognized and valued. In the concluding sections, the right of engaging with issues in a variety of modes is further developed.
The value of engaging playfully
The right to engage with political and social issues in a playful, non-goal oriented manner is touched upon by Jones (2013a), in his work on television satire and what he calls political play. While playfulness is achieved in various kinds of media genres, humour and comedy are especially fitting, as they aim to entertain and amuse. Of course, other genres do this too, but as Morreall (2005) explains, we engage in humour ‘for its own sake rather than to reach a goal’, and the ‘usual intentions, presuppositions and consequences of what we say are not in force’ (p. 68). According to Jones (2013a), play signals inclusion, as audiences are ‘invited into the speech act’ (p. 402) which allows for participation rather than consumption ‘of pre-established meanings, positions and opinions’. This invitation to play answers to the identified constructions of communities in various ways: as a friend, as someone with strong emotional-ideological conviction, as a teacher or student, or as a fellow critical ironist.
Political comedy’s playfulness works educationally, and when audiences engage they gain confidence in relation to what they are learning, or already know. When playfully engaged in humour and irony, audiences have to identify a kind of double-voiced discourse (Bakhtin, 1987), meaning they are prompted repeatedly and continually, to attempt to discern what is meant to be taken seriously or not (Doona, 2016). This act and skill of interpretation (Abercrombie and Longhurst, 1998) is valuable in itself, as well as constructed as enjoyable and fulfilling (Doona, 2016).
The responsibility coupled with this right to engage playfully has to do with acknowledgement. The responsibility to acknowledge that play is in fact play pertains to producers, audiences and secondary audiences of such playful media forms. Producers need to label such media content clearly, which in the Swedish context is regulated in broadcast media. Tankesmedjan is required to state that it is a satirical programme. 4
The audience equally has a responsibility to keep this in mind when engaging with such forms, by observing the fact that such programmes don’t adhere to the same standards of factuality and impartiality as other kinds of programming. In most cases, producers and audiences take up these responsibilities well: the studied audience showed awareness of what the comedy label means, and the mentioned programmes clearly state that they are comedic. Most of the problems with such acknowledgement seem to stem from other kinds of media and secondary audiences, that is, audiences that don’t engage with the programmes regularly, but become engaged in certain cases. When humour causes controversy, such audiences are made aware through other media outlets. Since they come into contact with the humorous content out of context, and aren’t given the same chance to activate the interpretative skills that the regular political comedy audience has been able to develop, they don’t acknowledge the humorous or ironic mode of discourse intended. According to Smith (2009), comedians can aim to offend such secondary audiences, to make a serious point, or for other less defined reasons, which might be problematic. These secondary audiences can be considered ‘baited’ to engage, either by comedians themselves, or by journalistic or social media sources. In such cases the right to engage playfully becomes threatened, since playfulness as such become questioned and loses legitimacy.
The value of engaging emotionally
Connected to the value of playful engagement is the value of feeling and being emotional, in relation to political or social issues, and to acknowledge that all reasoning is both rational and emotional (Burkitt, 2014; Dahlgren, 2009). The study of political comedy audiences reveals that they in part suffer from what Coleman (2013a) has called the affective deficit of modern democracy (Doona, 2016). This deficit highlights how politics, on a general level, and voting in particular, are carried out in a way ‘incongruent with the sensibilities of citizens as rational and emotional makers of meaning’ (Coleman, 2013a: 5). Here, political comedy’s affectively charged mode of address is of particular relevance; emotions associated with political engagement, such as anger, joy, frustration, hope and so on, need to be recognized in political media.
The right to feel connects to unlaughter as well as laughter. If a person doesn’t appreciate political comedy that trivializes or mocks groups that they consider to be disenfranchised, as illustrated earlier, they have a right to such an emotional reaction. It is legitimate in its own right, even if it causes conflict. Recognizing emotions potentially leads to productive political and social discourse, where various groups can learn about each other’s differences better, and hopefully come to respect them. This assertion might seem to contradict the abovementioned responsibility of recognizing humorous intent, but the difference lies in the nuance of the reactions: the responsibility to respect humorous intent doesn’t contradict the right to criticize the idea behind such intention. Admittedly, this is complex in practice, as various humour scandals have included accusations of manipulated intent, meaning comedians are blamed for ‘hiding’ behind the defence of ‘just joking’ – a problem faced in all kinds of social context: from debates in global media to fights among siblings.
Corresponding with the right to engage emotionally is the responsibility to respect such emotions from others. On a general level, citizens need to be made aware of the emotional engagement among groups and individuals outside of their own community, as well as respect emotionality as a part of political discourse. To a certain extent, political comedy audiences are already aware of this. However, that doesn’t make them immune to the affective deficit, as it cannot be mended solely on the individual level, or through popular culture; as Coleman (2013a) expresses it, citizens’ negative feelings about voting or participating in other ways ‘are rooted in objective conditions of structural inequality’ (p. 228). The promotion of playful and affective political media, and the cultural citizenship values that correspond with engagement in and through such media, may be part of the solution, but structural inequalities relate to wider societal processes that affect citizen efficacy, such as inequality based on class, gender, ethnicity, education, age, function and so on.
Being a citizen entails subjection: it is unequal per design (at least in a representative democracy). This means that young adults that grow up in a late modern, contemporary Western context, characterized by difference, individualization and scepticism towards authority figures and collective action (Coleman, 2013a; Dahlgren, 2009; Stevenson, 2003) need to find ways to cope with or negotiate this: being subjected, yet still believing in citizen agency (Barnhurst, 1998). By engaging in political comedy, young adult citizens are aided in such negotiations, through the political play and emotional outburst invited by such forms, as well as through the wider development of cultural citizenship that political comedy and humour engagement in general promotes.
Discussion
As citizenship refers to ‘the terms of belonging to a nation-state’ (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012: 198), it follows that social, civil and political aspects have gained the most attention. But information, knowledge, experience and participation aren’t confined to mediation on the level of the nation-state. It takes place in sub-cultural and global communities too (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012). Cultural citizenship helps us identify ignored forms of knowledge of non-dominant groups, here represented by young adults who engage with political comedy in sub-cultural, national and global contexts. Their engagement defends cultural citizenship values of playfulness and emotion, as well as connecting to the values of social, civil and political citizenship. In this sense, cultural citizenship is both its ‘own’ kind of citizenship, in its focus on popular culture and subjective meaning-making, as well as an overarching concept that spans across the other forms of citizenship, emphasizing the importance of spaces that promote processes of learning about others and respecting differences, represented by scholars like Delanty and Stevenson.
While modern era models of citizenship have considered education important, they tend to associate it with social citizenship, that is, formal education mandated by the state. For sure, this aspect of citizenship is paramount, but beyond that, culture offers individuals the cultural means to participate in society (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012: 199). Whereas news and current affairs media have been considered important to citizens’ abilities to participate, other forms of popular media have been overlooked or even considered harmful (cf. Hart and Hartelius, 2007; Postman, 1987). This has narrowed the study of media and citizenship and ignored the importance of media form and audience subjectivity.
The need to remedy the underestimation of the educational and community-building roles of culture is met by the concept of cultural citizenship, as it stresses the ‘autonomous and essential role’ that culture plays in the attribution of belonging (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012: 198). However, the understanding of political comedy and satire engagement as cultural citizenship is still underdeveloped. Political comedy’s explicit treatment of politics and political culture, alongside the hybrid modes of address of humour, aids audiences in acquiring specific interpretative skills. In a sense, this is moving ‘back’ towards politics, in comparison to other studies of cultural citizenship, where the focus more often is on the political in a wider sense, relating to issues of identity and difference in relation to gender, place or nationality (cf. Askanius, 2017; Hermes and Müller, 2014; Punathambekar, 2005; Stevenson, 2009). More specifically, the values associated with emotional and playful modes of engagement underscore how contemporary models of citizenship need to include a holistically reconceptualized citizen subject, who is not rational and fully formed from the start. Political comedy engagement is constructed as educational and community building, as promoting certain values related to engagement in and through the media; yet the understanding of these values as both rights and responsibilities expose the possible limits of this engagement, when it comes to respecting difference.
Imperative in the case of non-dominant groups such as young adults, and the limited role their subjectivities have been given, is that cultural citizenship turns our attention to the preconditions for gaining citizenship rights (Dahlgren, 2009; Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012). It does so on two levels: on the level of collectives, how groups previously denied such rights acquired them, and on the subjective level, how younger people develop into full(er) citizens. While children and young adults may enjoy formal citizen status, they don’t have all the rights and responsibilities associated with the social, civil or political aspects of citizenship. Formal education is tasked with preparing them, but as argued, popular culture plays a significant role beyond that (Barnhurst, 1998). This process of becoming – and developing for the more experienced of the study’s participants – includes previously ignored dynamics, such as gaining a place in a community and reflecting on that, thereby gradually changing the perspective of oneself or one’s community as included, rather than excluded.
Conclusion
Since citizenship traditionally has been associated with White educated men, and, important here, adulthood or even middle age, ‘it cannot be adequately understood when it is stripped of this heritage of normalizing identities and of marginalization of others’ (Klaus and Lünenborg, 2012: 200). This is why popular culture, and to some extent humour and comedy, are such important spaces for those who are or feel excluded, especially in cases where individuals or groups ‘lack the cultural capital or competences’ required for civic engagement ‘at a more political or abstract level’ (Hermes, 1998: 160). This study has identified four themes of community and identity construction associated with political comedy engagement: lacking social context, ideology and strong emotions, knowledge and education, and irony as a discursive mode and disposition. These themes make it clear that while the study’s participants are highly privileged in a global perspective, they struggle with issues of belonging and knowledge, in the process of becoming and developing as citizens.
These struggles are rational and emotional, and inform subjective and collective development of citizenship values, arguing for a more nuanced and empirically founded focus on young adult audiences of various kinds of popular and political media. Through its hybridity, political comedy invites a complex mix of rational, emotional and playful engagement, wherein audiences expose interpretative skills associated with double-level awareness: every statement in political comedy programmes need to be carefully considered and deemed as serious, silly or somewhere in-between.
The engagement in political comedy thereby defends the values of playful and emotional modes of engagement. This sets it apart from other kinds of political media, and stresses the understanding of media form as dynamic, as well as something that is impossible to predetermine as harmful or helpful to citizenship.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
