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Communicative Content of Selected Visual Construction of Humour on Facebook: A Visual Social Semiotic Analysis

Communicative Content of Selected Visual Construction of Humour on Facebook: A Visual Social Semiotic Analysis
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Author(s): Ibrahim Esan Olaosun (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria)
Copyright: 2016
Pages: 16
Source title: Analyzing Language and Humor in Online Communication
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Rotimi Taiwo (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria), Akinola Odebunmi (University of Ibadan, Nigeria)and Akin Adetunji (Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Nigeria)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0338-5.ch005

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Abstract

This paper socio-critically analyses some visual constructions of humour on Facebook. Based on 17 visual data, gathered through the method of extensive Internet Ethnography, the paper indicates that members of the Facebook networking site are informal misogelasts, who through the methods of digital cloning, image cropping and digital impersonation, generate or appropriate visual materials and post such to generate social/communicational humour. Using insights from Visual Social Semiotics proposed by Hodge and Kress (1988) and Critical Social Semiotics espoused by Caldas-Couthard, Carmen Rosa and Van Leeuwen Theo (2003), analyses reveal that constructed visual humour incorporates and interrogates such social phenomena as religion, education, morals, love, health and politics. The paper concludes that Facebook is not just a site for meeting new faces and interacting with them but also a medium for obtaining information on these social phenomena and how they are represented in the minds of individuals.

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