Politainment as a Speech Event
A Socio-Pragmatic Analysis of Participation in Political Satire Shows
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31973/2ev16q24Keywords:
politainment, speech event, socio-pragmatics, entertaining politics, political satireAbstract
This study is an attempt to approach the notion of politainment from the socio-pragmatic framework of participation. Politainment is a relatively new concept that describes a merge between the political and entertainment genres as a result of the effect of modern media platforms on politics. It falls into two main categories: political entertainment, and entertaining politics. Political entertainment usually involves the utilisation of political agendas in entertainment like movies and music; while entertaining politics involves the politicians attending entertainment events to advocate for their political agendas. The focus of the current study is on entertaining politics as a speech event. The event in question is a political satire show. This study tries to analyse such event in terms of the socio-pragmatic notion of participation which tries to account for the different production and reception roles played by the politician and the other people in these shows in order to establish the speech event itself. The sample of the study consists of an interview with a politician in an entertainment show. The main finding of this study is that this type of events tends to be more on the entertainment side than adopting a political theme.
Downloads
References
Antaki, C., Barnes, R., & Leudar, I. (1996). Identifying mutual understanding. In E. Goody (Ed.), Social intelligence and interaction (pp. 1-34). Cambridge University Press.
Chovanec, J., & Dynel, M. (2015). Participation in public and social media interactions. In J. Chovanec & M. Dynel (Eds.), Participation in Public and Social Media Interactions (pp. 1-28). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Clayman, S. E. (1992). Footing in the achievement of neutrality: The case of news-interview discourse. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at work (pp. 163-198). Cambridge University Press.
Dorner, J. (2001). Entertainment politics: The transformation of political communication. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Drake, P., & Miah, A. (2010). The cultural politics of celebrity. Cultural Politics, 6(1), 49-64.
https://doi.org/10.2752/175174210X12591372143094
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. Pantheon Books.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harper & Row.
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Goodwin, C. (2007). Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse & Society, 18(1), 53-73.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926507069457
Gumperz, J. J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge University Press.
Haugh, M. (2013). Speaker meaning and accountability in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 48(1), 41-56.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.10.001
Holt, E., & O'Driscoll, J. (2021). Participation framework and participation footing in discourse analysis. In K. Aijmer & D. Biber (Eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics (pp. 130-150). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Levinson, S. C. (1988). Putting linguistics on a proper footing: Explorations in Goffman's concepts of participation. In P. Drew & A. Wootton (Eds.), Erving Goffman: Exploring the interaction order (pp. 161-227). Polity Press.
Levinson, S. C. ([1979] 1992). Activity types and language. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at work (pp. 66-100). Cambridge University Press.
Nieland, J. (2015). Politainment: Political engagement in a mediated world. Journal of Political Communication, 32(4), 451-459. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2015.1016442
Radošinská, J., Becker, V., Horký, D., & Marsikova, K. (2021). Politainment as a hybrid genre: Blurring the boundaries between politics and entertainment. Media, Culture & Society, 43(1), 71-89. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720973565
Riegert, K., & Collins, D. (2015). Politainment and social media: The case of Facebook. In K. Riegert & D. Collins (Eds.), Politainment: The transformation of politics in the digital age (pp. 105-120). Routledge.
Scollon, R. (1996). Discourse identity and social interaction. Ablex Publishing.
Street, J. (2012). Do celebrity politics and celebrity politicians matter? The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 14(3), 346-356. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2011.00476.x
Wadensjö, C. (1998). Interpreting as interaction. Longman.
Spicer, S. (2021, October, 30). Sean Spicer. "Radical Nation" [Interview by Bill Maher]. Real Time with Bill Maher. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcpzcyX1ILE&list=PLajuJYZKBz2T9tvgC0WfupaE4VcMiqx_n&index=25. Retrived May 17, 2023
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Shawqi K. Ismail, Prof. Sundus Muhsin Ali Al Ubaidy

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright and Licensing:
For all articles published in Al-Adab journal, copyright is retained by the authors. Articles are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, meaning that anyone may download and read the paper for free. In addition, the article may be reused and quoted provided that the original published version is cited. These conditions allow for maximum use and exposure of the work.
Reproducing Published Material from other Publishers: It is absolutely essential that authors obtain permission to reproduce any published material (figures, schemes, tables or any extract of a text) which does not fall into the public domain, or for which they do not hold the copyright. Permission should be requested by the authors from the copyrightholder (usually the Publisher, please refer to the imprint of the individual publications to identify the copyrightholder).
Permission is required for: Your own works published by other Publishers and for which you did not retain copyright.
Substantial extracts from anyones' works or a series of works.
Use of Tables, Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks if they are unaltered or slightly modified.
Photographs for which you do not hold copyright.
Permission is not required for: Reconstruction of your own table with data already published elsewhere. Please notice that in this case you must cite the source of the data in the form of either "Data from..." or "Adapted from...".
Reasonably short quotes are considered fair use and therefore do not require permission.
Graphs, Charts, Schemes and Artworks that are completely redrawn by the authors and significantly changed beyond recognition do not require permission.
Obtaining Permission
In order to avoid unnecessary delays in the publication process, you should start obtaining permissions as early as possible. If in any doubt about the copyright, apply for permission. Al-Adab Journal cannot publish material from other publications without permission.
The copyright holder may give you instructions on the form of acknowledgement to be followed; otherwise follow the style: "Reproduced with permission from [author], [book/journal title]; published by [publisher], [year].' at the end of the caption of the Table, Figure or Scheme.



