Visual narrative and humour in vines

Abstract

This thesis investigates the visual narrative and humorous nature of vines, the popular six- second videos that trended in social media around 2013–2016. Little study has been made of vines or micro-videos in general despite their still relevant presence in social media. To study the vines’ humorous nature, a paper titled “Humor as a Double-Edged Sword: Four Functions of Humor in Communication” (2006) written by John C. Meyers will be used as reference, and a visual narrative analysis used for comic strips from Neil Cohn’s “Visual narrative structure” (2013) is used when analysing the vines and their narrative structure. This is because vines often resemble comics structurally and visually because of their hectic pacing and short time-frame. By combining these theories this thesis will look into what made vines so popular and why their humour and visual narrative structure is unique.