الفهرس 
HumorOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
Abstract
This study sets to discover the linguistic tools used by satirists to exaggerate the defects of their society, to criticize them, and to influence people’s attitudes with the intention of social reform. The two political shows that are selected to be the core of this study are: The Daily Show of Jon Stewart and Al Bernameg of Bassem Youssef. The study analyzes the selected episodes of each show by employing two approaches: The General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH), and Norris’ Multimodal Interactional Approach (Norris’ MIA). It aims to prove that humor is generated through either GTVH’s parameters or Norris’ verbal and non-verbal modes, or through integration between them. For this particular purpose, the dissertation is divided as follows.Introduction
The introductory part presents the context, purpose, scope, and rationale of the study. Moreover, it includes the research questions.
Chapter One: Review of Literature
This chapter is divided into two parts. The first is concerned with an historical overview of humor; the forms of humor, its functions, the characteristics of jokes, and the traditional theories of humor. The second part gives a general idea of the concepts of discourse, critical discourse analysis (CDA), multimodal discourse analysis (MDA), and the genre of political satire shows, and its impact on people.
Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework and Methodology
The chapter includes two parts. The first part elucidates the two approaches adopted in the analysis of the data under investigation, namely, the GTVH and Norris’ MIA. The second part presents data collection, recording, transcription, and the procedure of data analysis.
Chapter Three: The Syrian Crisis Episodes
This chapter provides an analysis of the Al Bernameg episode and The Daily Show episode that revolve mainly around the Syrian crisis, under the two approaches, i.e. GTVH and Norris’ MIA. In the Syrian crisis episodes, Youssef and Stewart mock their Presidents’ (Morsi and Obama) stance towards solving the crisis.
Chapter Four: Commenting on the Presidents’ Attitudes in Foreign Countries
The chapter focuses on analyzing the two episodes that center mainly on ridiculing the Presidents’ attitudes and speeches in foreign countries. Al Bernameg’s episode criticizes Morsi during his first trip to Germany, while the The Daily Show’s episode mainly ridicules Obama on his first trip to Israel. Moreover, it mocks the American government’s standpoint towards the Palestinian crisis.
Chapter five: Ridiculing the Muslim Brotherhood Episodes
The majority of Al Bernameg’s episodes in 2013 revolve around the idea of mocking Morsi and MBs. However, the researcher selects episode no. 21 from Al Bernameg due to the fact that there are several examples where Youssef blends the verbal with the non-verbal communicative modes to create laughter and to send underlying messages. As regards The Daily Show, the researcher selects an episode where Stewart comments on Youssef’s conviction by the MBs, because of insulting Morsi and Islam.
Findings and Conclusion
This part is dedicated to the most important results of the research. The results show that humor is vital, as it helps in relieving agony and tension. Moreover, it reveals that the similarities between the two shows are more than the differences, with respect to the linguistic tools that are used by the two hosts. However, there is a slight difference in the usage of some tools, such as the LA parameter, the modes of proxemics and music. Furthermore, the current study concludes that Stewart and Youssef send implicit messages and mock the political regimes in their countries in a humorous way through integrating the verbal with the non-verbal communicative modes. In addition, it is noteworthy that utilizing verbal and non-verbal communicative modes to create humor in these shows helps the hosts to reflect and reveal dominant ideologies in their countries. Through utilizing these modes in a humorous way, they manipulate the audience’s perception of reality and redirect their way of thinking.