Religious Humor Digitalized by New Media

Abstract

The relationship between religion and humor requires more research with in the religious context. The main purpose of the study, which focuses on the entertaining appearance of the religious-themed visuals in social media and their comforting qualities, is to determine how religious humor in physical life is transformed into a digital form in electronic media. For this purpose, Facebook application, which has millions of users in Turkey, was chosen as a sample. Visuals with religious content were handled particularly in line with the approaches of Morreal, and with Thorson and Powell, who conduct research in a framework close to him. Discourse analysis model, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. As a result of the study, it was seen that religious humor is fictionalized with the possibilities offered by the electronic environment within the integrity of the visual and text. In the visuals analyzed during the research process, traces of religiously recommended humor were seen mostly. As with other humor types, religious humor elements were produced for the purpose of coping with life's difficulties, forgetting the troubles and relaxing psychologically, having fun, motivating oneself in a positive way, showing a positive perspective in the face of negative situations, making other people laugh and creating funny social environments through humor.