Humor and inclusion of public interest topics in a spreading content: an analysis of the 2016 Olympics case

Abstract

We start from the different modes of circulation of the “Olympiad 2016”, understood here as a narrative media work. In addition to the conventional way, in which traditional media vehicles convey/rebound the realization of the sporting event, multiple public discourses are added in the dialogical formation of a spreading content in the network. The media profanation stands out as a political movement for the resumption of communicative control, which is manifested through a process of participatory adaptation through different platforms. Humor emerges as a convenient expression for the investigation of a more disorderly way of resignification waged by agents interacting with the work in question. In this regard, four cases were selected aiming 1) to address the capacity of incorporating social themes into the work in circulation by the use of humor and 2) the promotion of such themes in the sphere of public visibility.