Мodern political humor as polyfunctional phenomenon.

Abstract

Political humor is a complicated phenomenon with its scientific reflection occurring in two major dimensions. On one hand, under the conditions of politics complication, politisation of various social aspects, permanent critical state of government, humor conducts the role of a tool to comprehend the politics with its current state, events and personalities. On the other hand, political humor is integral element of modern politicians’ public image who are supposed to act like «one of the guys» with the help of a certain political technology. Politics can be considered as a state of dual opposition, where humor and seriousness are two poles of such an opposition.

Political humor is a polyfunctional phenomenon. General functions of political humor are: emancipating, critical, evaluative, integrative and more. Political humor is a contextual phenomenon with its functions, types and forms being dependent on political regime of a society. Forms of political humor are also flexible and can include satire, irony, grotesque and caricature. In a modern cultural dimension one of the most solicited form of political humor is the Internet – memes, slogans, viral videos and more. Despite the vast amount of folk art, the biggest channel of humoristic representation in modern Ukraine is professional humor, provided by media.

With all that, even risky political attacks cannot be classified as sharp political satire as their social criticism is too soft and does not urge to fight against the flaws. The government ignores this humor and even agrees to become the subject of it, which leads to the political humor softening, the loss of revealing function and adopting the entertainment feature. Another aspect of political humor problems is its usage as political technology for modern political leaders.