Political Satire and Its Influence on Youth Political Perception

• Main Authors: Harveena, Kaur, Arnold, Puyok
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: UNIMAS Publisher 2021
• Subjects: JA Political science (General)
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/41508/3/Political%20Satire%20-%20Copy.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/41508/; https://publisher.unimas.my/ojs/index.php/TUR/article/view/4096
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

This article is based on research that explored the familiarity of political satire among youth and examined whether political satire has any impact on the political perception of the youths. A survey was conducted in Kuala Lumpur involving 50 respondents from 18 to 40 years of age. Content analysis was used to explore the forms of political satire. There were seven different forms of political satire analysed in this research, namely, political graphics by Fahmi Reza, political cartoons by Zunar, political anime from a Facebook page entitled “Bro, don’t like that la, bro”, memes from “SarawakGags”, “HarakatDaily” satirical news site, Dr Jason Leong’s satirical tweets on Twitter and parody videos by Douglas Lim. These themes were derived from social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The study found that political satire has profound impact on the political interests of the youths as it not only helps to increase their political understanding, it also presents political issues in creative and interesting ways. It is argued that political satire will shape the political thinking, especially the youths. However, the direct effects of political satire on voting inclination are still inconclusive and need to be further explored.