Does Humour Belong in Politics? Fun in the Public Sphere

The second speaker in this IAMCR 2024 session is Nicholas Holm, whose interest is in the role of fun in the public sphere. In political communication, in fact, humour and laughter often appears out of place; in recent times, however, some playful and humorous elements have come to intrude into political discourse. How can we make sense of this?

This diverges very substantially from the staid, rational, serious Habermasian conceptualisation of the public sphere, which was always unrealistic and never properly realised. Indeed, the polity is not always especially interested in such boring forms of public debate, and instead indulges in more viral and playful forms of communication (that also include ‘dark’ participation).

Overtly dour and negative views of such playful communication overlook the importance of satire and humour in public debate; this often explicitly highlights the problems of society in a weary that purely rational debate cannot – we therefore need to recognise the importance of ‘silly citizenship’, as John Hartley has argued, and trouble the inherent distinctions between political and popular communication; however, we also need to consider the democratic implications of such citizenship.

Populist parties’ rallies are likely to be more fun for their participants than serious party conferences, for instance, but this does not mean that they are pro-democratic; QAnon adherents may also engage in playful disinformation sharing, but this does not mean that they are contributing meaningfully to public discourse.

Political trolling can be fun, for example, as trolls take the opportunity to amuse themselves and others; trolls are not entirely earnest in their speech, but still promote a type of politics they believe in (or at least attack the politics they are against). Trolls use social media to engage in politics in ways that are entertaining, at least for them.

Political mobs, too, revel in the enjoyment of shared proximity and a sense of power; this is fun for them, and may be expressed in chants or dances as well as violence. Mobs may exist not for democracy but to serve their own ends, including also the pleasure of communal political action.

Finally, the satirist engages in fun as a core function of political communication , and in doing so positions fun also as a reason for engagement. This corrects an unnecessary and counterproductive assertion that politics is only meaningful when it is not fun.

For better or worse, fun is therefore the new normal of an affective and entertaining public sphere; trolls, mobs, and satirists are no longer deviations from traditional ways of doing politics, but an integral part of the contemporary political and public sphere – this is not necessarily an improvement on past modes of politics, but simply a fact of life in the current social, political, and media environment. ‘Fun’ politics is no temporary aberration, but here to stay. We must understand how they conduct politics as affective entertainment.