Conversational Humour and Joint Fantisizing in Online Journalism
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | The article deals with humour construction in online newspapers. Analysing the new interactive genre of live sports commentary, it documents how humour is produced through incongruities, allusion and irony as well as co-constructed in quasi-conversational interaction between the journalist and his online audiences. It is argued that humour is crucial not only for enhancing the interpersonal dimension, i.e., building up solidarity within the virtual group of followers, but als for providing entertainment in dull moments of the game, thus having a compensatory function with respect of the ideational dimension. The quasi-conversational nature of the genre makes it possible for the audience to get involved in collective humour and even in joint fantasizing. The analysis is a case study of a report on a high-profile international football match for the online version of the Guardian newspaper. |