Humor as resistance: the case of Zaytung

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1819855 (Table of Contents)

This thesis focuses on the Turkish fictional/satirical news website Zaytung, which employs humor as a form of resistance. Zaytung makes fun of the political authority and practices of the Turkish mainstream media in its humorous fake news and parody news articles. Zaytung is a social platform in which anyone can sign up and write their own fictional humorous news articles. A humorous alternative reality is produced and presented to the public by Zaytung as a reaction to the discourses of conventional journalism in Turkey. With Zaytung’s new perspective surrounded with irony, a different political consciousness is created. There are examples of Zaytung news articles that are taken seriously, and also examples of conventional news articles pointed out for being “like Zaytung news”. I argue that not only mainstream representations of reality affect Zaytung, but also the website affects mainstream conceptions of reality by shaping readers’ approaches to it as in the example of “like Zaytung news”. The website demonstrates the absurdity in that reality by approaching it in a subversive and humorous way. In this thesis, I suggest that plurality provided by parody and irony helps Zaytung play with politics, reality, and the boundaries of humor.