LSE Masters Dissertation Abstract

*Full dissertation available upon request.

‘We Have to Laugh to Keep from Crying’: A Cross-Platform Thematic Analysis of Social Media Comments in Response to Political Humor on Saturday Night Live

Supervisor: Dr. César Jiménez-Martínez

Dissertation (MC499) submitted to the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics, August 2025, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MSc in Media and Communications.

ABSTRACT

Existing studies on political satire in the U.S. have largely built upon political communications and media effects research, often with regard to The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, and Last Week Tonight. This thesis utilizes humor studies and audience theory to examine audience meaning-making on social media, particularly in response to political humor on Saturday Night Live. I further explore how these comments differ across platforms, and how Perks’s (2012) three satiric television decoding positions can be applied to social media data. My research was conducted via thematic analysis of social media comments on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube using a hybrid inductive and deductive approach. 

Users most frequently took up Perks’s (2012) neutral decoding positions in their comments, largely focusing on the humor without discussing the political implications of the content. However, many users found the material to be not funny or offensive, or a catalyst for providing political commentary. To encapsulate these comments, I constructed an additional decoding position of “resistant meanings.” Across platforms, more explicit political commentary was found on Instagram and TikTok than YouTube, despite findings from prior studies. My analysis helps to understand how political satire is received online and provides insight into how humor may impact the way users reckon with their political reality. Lastly, my findings contain implications for the future of political engagement, social media, and entertainment as they rapidly transform and intersect, and as audiences interact with an increasingly mediated political sphere.