Relief or Weapon: The Cyber-Ethnography of Political Humor in Presidential Election in 2017

Regarding that political humor was one of most prevalent communicative themes during the presidential election in 2017, this research aims to answer this question that how political humor is used in most politicized period of time. So we chose two virtual communities in Telegram messenger including extreme advocates of two main political parties and analyzed more than 7000 massages of these groups during 30 days up to presidential election in 2017, using the Cyber-Ethnographic method. We have found that humor is utilized in two ways: as a weapon (in semiotic battle and keeping up cognitive distance against opponents) and as a relief (for reducing anxiety and nervous pressure and growing sympathy with insiders). But the main distinction between these groups was implementing Survival humor (laughing at misery) by the reformist one. Also these communicative departure to virtual space has caused changes both in Telegram as a medium (customization based on recipient’s lingual and cultural context) and in logic of politics (because of inherent characteristics of this medium). In fact, we are witness of blending areas (political and nonpolitical, personal and impersonal, sadness and happiness and …).