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HUMLIT: Turning tension into a tickle

In today鈥檚 polarised society, conflicts and controversies often escalate due to miscommunication and a lack of understanding. Traditional dialogue methods frequently fall short, leaving many issues unresolved or exacerbated. Humour, when used poorly, can further deepen divides, while its potential for positive impact remains untapped. Supported by the Marie Sk艂odowska-Curie Actions programme, the HUMLIT project will explore and harness the power of humour literacy to reframe public conflicts. By analysing humour across production, content, and reception, the project aims to enhance dialogue and mitigate conflicts. Spanning 48 months with 25 partner institutions from the EU and beyond, HUMLIT will bridge academic and practical expertise to promote effective humour literacy in society.

HUMLIT at the University of Bergen

UiB's representative in HUMLIT is 脰zlem Demirkol-T酶nnesen, postdoctor in the PREPARE project (ERC). HUMLIT's aim to find out how humour literacy can be used to reframe the conflicts and controversial issues in the public sphere overlaps well with PREPARE鈥檚 mission to understand the changes in the practices of citizenship that were brought along by the proliferation of digital technologies such as social media where humour is the preferred style of communication. HUMLIT addresses the need for systematically and cross-culturally studying humour literacy in the European public sphere via the contributions of researchers from 20+ partner institutions.

Beyond specific research aims, one of the important goals of the study is to facilitate knowledge exchange across borders between researchers studying the role and literacy of humour in public debate in different countries. We will contribute to this aim of the project by hosting two researchers from other partner institutions here at the Infomedia department for a brief research visit that is funded by the project.聽聽