A Discourse Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of Online Satire, Music And Comedy In Creating Awareness On Covid-19 Pandemic

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Aroge Modupe Grace , Ajepe, Ife Fiyinfolu

Abstract

The use of satire, music, comedy on social media of recent cannot be over emphasized. It has grown steadily on daily basis. They are designed and acted to entertain the general populace usually with irony or witty saying in order to criticise a prevalent issue and invoke positive change or reformation on the target audience. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of satire, music and comedy as tools for reforming the society about the misconceptions of the general populace on covid-19. The study explores effective use of satire, music, and comedy as tools for reforming the society through the themes and characterizations used by the producers. 18 purposively selected videos of satire, music and comedy were downloaded from the internet during Covid-19 pandemic situation across the globe. Fairclough’s (2010) model is chosen as framework for analysing the satire, music and comedy in conjunction with descriptive survey in order to investigate the effectiveness of satire, music and comedy as tools for reforming the society about the misconceptions of the general populace on covid-19.


The analysis reveals that satire, music and comedy are not just made to make the audience laugh; the underlying issue is for them to be used as tools for reforming the society. The study shows that the themes and characterization in these downloaded satire, music and comedy bring about racial harmony/disharmony, right attitude to drugs usage/avoidance, ways of preventing certain ailments, awakening the political leaders’ conscience to their responsibilities towards the masses and bringing man back to God who can heal any kind of ailments. The study concludes that the target audience read both positive and negative meanings to the messages being disseminated through the satire, music and comedy.

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