Serious Humor about the Egyptian Nuclear Program: A Pragmatic Analysis of Facebook Posts

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating Egyptian humor towards the Egyptian Nuclear Program. Based on ninety trending Facebook posts (liked by at least 1000 users), both the Cooperative Principle and the General Theory of Verbal Humor are applied. The data are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to measure the societal evaluation of the Nuclear Program which is part of the governmental reform plan. The findings suggest that people's practices of humor on Facebook could reveal their evaluative perception and the ideological discernment of the Nuclear Program along with other sociological phenomena. Such practices of humor explicate how the Facebook posts reflect the people’s perception and evaluation of the prospective effect of the Nuclear Program on the Egyptian society.