Discourse analysis on online gender-based humor: Markers of normalization, tolerance, and lens of inequality

Abstract

Language is one of the most powerful means through which sexism and gender discrimination are perpetrated and reproduced (Menegatti and Rubini, 2017). The study examined the contrarian features of gender-based online humor in relation to the mainstreaming of gender and development (GAD). Discourse analysis was used as a method in examining discourse markers of online gender-based humor in terms of defaulting jokes as normal, tolerating sexist jokes, and perceiving that inequality in gender is reality. Fourteen (14) participants who are persons in power or authority, persons based on their educational attainment, persons based on their gender roles, and persons from different generational classifications participated in the study which utilized online gender-based-mapper, one-on-one interviews, and FGD-oriented instruments for the extraction and analysis of the research. After the analysis, it was revealed that the normalization of online gender jokes was prevalent in social media. Normalization proceeds as a way of life in making things light in the conversation and making these conversations intending to have enjoyment and entertainment. For tolerating sexist jokes, it appears that the actors in the online set-up manifest the markers for tolerance through “negligence” which seems to be alarming language production and language distribution to as many social media players.