Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Advanced
Title details for The Last Laugh by Trevor J. Blank - Available

The Last Laugh

by Trevor J. Blank
ebook
Read a sample Read a sample
Widely publicized in mass media worldwide, high-profile tragedies and celebrity scandals—the untimely deaths of Michael Jackson and Princess Diana, the embarrassing affairs of Tiger Woods and President Clinton, the 9/11 attacks or the Challenger space shuttle explosion—often provoke nervous laughter and black humor. If in the past this snarky folklore may have been shared among friends and uttered behind closed doors, today the Internet's ubiquity and instant interactivity propels such humor across a much more extensive and digitally mediated discursive space. New media not only let more people "in on the joke," but they have also become the "go-to" formats for engaging in symbolic interaction, especially in times of anxiety or emotional suppression, by providing users an expansive forum for humorous, combative, or intellectual communication, including jokes that cross the line of propriety and good taste. Moving through engaging case studies of Internet-derived humor about momentous disasters in recent American popular culture and history, The Last Laugh chronicles how and why new media have become a predominant means of vernacular expression. Trevor J. Blank argues that computer-mediated communication has helped to compensate for users' sense of physical detachment in the "real" world, while generating newly meaningful and dynamic opportunities for the creation and dissemination of folklore. Drawing together recent developments in new media studies with the analytical tools of folklore studies, he makes a strong case for the significance to contemporary folklore of technologically driven trends in folk and mass culture.
Expand title description text
Series: Folklore Studies in a Multicultural World Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Kindle Book

  • Release date: August 26, 2013

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780299292034
  • Release date: August 26, 2013

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780299292034
  • File size: 942 KB
  • Release date: August 26, 2013

Open EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780299292034
  • File size: 944 KB
  • Release date: August 26, 2013

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook
Open EPUB ebook

subjects

Sociology Nonfiction Humor (Nonfiction)

Languages

English

Widely publicized in mass media worldwide, high-profile tragedies and celebrity scandals—the untimely deaths of Michael Jackson and Princess Diana, the embarrassing affairs of Tiger Woods and President Clinton, the 9/11 attacks or the Challenger space shuttle explosion—often provoke nervous laughter and black humor. If in the past this snarky folklore may have been shared among friends and uttered behind closed doors, today the Internet's ubiquity and instant interactivity propels such humor across a much more extensive and digitally mediated discursive space. New media not only let more people "in on the joke," but they have also become the "go-to" formats for engaging in symbolic interaction, especially in times of anxiety or emotional suppression, by providing users an expansive forum for humorous, combative, or intellectual communication, including jokes that cross the line of propriety and good taste. Moving through engaging case studies of Internet-derived humor about momentous disasters in recent American popular culture and history, The Last Laugh chronicles how and why new media have become a predominant means of vernacular expression. Trevor J. Blank argues that computer-mediated communication has helped to compensate for users' sense of physical detachment in the "real" world, while generating newly meaningful and dynamic opportunities for the creation and dissemination of folklore. Drawing together recent developments in new media studies with the analytical tools of folklore studies, he makes a strong case for the significance to contemporary folklore of technologically driven trends in folk and mass culture.
Expand title description text
Sociology Nonfiction Humor (Nonfiction)
  • Details

    Publisher:
    University of Wisconsin Press

    Kindle Book
    Release date: August 26, 2013

    OverDrive Read
    ISBN: 9780299292034
    Release date: August 26, 2013

    EPUB ebook
    ISBN: 9780299292034
    File size: 942 KB
    Release date: August 26, 2013

    Open EPUB ebook
    ISBN: 9780299292034
    File size: 944 KB
    Release date: August 26, 2013

  • Creators
  • Formats
    Kindle Book
    OverDrive Read
    EPUB ebook
    Open EPUB ebook
  • Languages
    English