Ecological Crisis as a Laughing Matter

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the scattered field of humor research by focusing on the uses of humor in environmental communication. It reviews different types of environmental humor and draws together insights from a wide range of studies from different disciplines. The chapter provides a comprehensive picture of humor in various settings such as cartoons, advertisements, films, literature, information campaigns and educational materials, environmental protests and various social media applications. Psychological, linguistic and philosophical approaches have traditionally dominated humor research. Sociological approaches refocus attention from individuals to groups and from the content of humor to the context of humor. The number of environmental studies focusing on humor remains low even if more comprehensive databases are searched. A lack of content analysis based on material obtained from the newspaper text databases was noteworthy, since such studies are common elsewhere in environmental communication studies literature.