About the Book
How online humor influences politics and
culture in Latin America
This
volume is the first to provide a comprehensive Latin American perspective on
the role of humor in the Spanish- and Portuguese-language internet, highlighting
how the production and circulation of online humor influence the region's
relation to democracy and civil society and the production of meaning in
everyday life.
Several
case studies consider memes, including discussions of political cartoons in
Mexico and imagery that portrays the mismanagement of natural disasters in
Puerto Rico. Essays on Brazil examine how memes are shared on WhatsApp by Jair
Bolsonaro supporters and how the Instagram account Barbie Fascionista offers memes
as political commentary. Other case studies consider video content, including the
sketches of Argentinian comedian Guillermo Aquino, the short-form material of Chilean
vlogger Germán Garmendia, and a satirical YouTube column created by journalists
in Colombia. Contributors also offer new methodologies for studying the
laughable on social media, including a model for analyzing fake Twitter accounts.
Internet, Humor,
and Nation in Latin America demonstrates that internet humor can generate novel
means of public interaction with the political and cultural spheres and create
greater expectations of governmental accountability and democratic
participation. This volume shows the importance of paying serious attention to
humorous digital content as part of contemporary culture.
Contributors: Eva Paulina Bueno Juan Poblete Alberto
Centeno-Pulido Damián Fraticelli Juan Carlos Rodríguez Viktor Chagas
Paul Alonso Ulisses Sawczuk da Silva Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste Alejandra
Nallely Collado Campos R. Sánchez-Rivera Mélodine Sommier Fábio Marques
de Souza
A
volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o
America, edited by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez
Publication
of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American
Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
