Fettvett, bajsbasket och Edward Blom.

Om metaironisk kommunikation i avloppsbranschen.

Abstract

Sewage infrastructures are critical for society, both for everyday life and for the environment. But they are also fragile, and human behavior can cause them to collapse. Thus, citizens need to be fostered, yet human excrement is a sensitive subject and toilet behavior remains a private affair. How is it then possible for the water and sewage industry to increase awareness of toileting know-how and to govern people’s behavior in a time when freedom of choice has been culturally elevated? Humor is a well-rehearsed strategy that provides relief from cultural discomforts. This article demonstrates how this is done through “meta-irony” and shows how humour neutralizes the topic and thereby enables information about this sensitive matter. It investigates how information campaigns use rhyme, play and comedy to educate adult people, discipline their actions and culturally to construct desirable subjects. What could otherwise be seen as invasive propaganda becomes so glaringly obvious that it seems not to threaten the free subject.