Through
laughing in a group the shared agreement of what is
humorous makes the subject matter or
funny incident a norm through out the
audience. The
laughter track on
television comedies and the live recordings of
stand-up reinforce that
comedy is the only
art form that needs an audience to exist.
Music and movies, soap operas and literature can all be enjoyed individually or in a gathering. Group laughter is an interesting phenomenon.
It associates people and assimilates their understanding. The laughter track on situation comedies serves to unite individuals or small audiences.
By shared laughing, one is asserting that sanity lies with us and that one is not expressing forms of madness by laughing alone.
However to make sure that ‘sanity lies with us’ when watching televised comedy the mechanism of the laughter track enables individuals and same groups viewing the piece to not feel isolated even though they are in isolation.
David Grote writing in 1983 continues to say:
“Laugh tracks, or scream tracks, or cheer tracks are not required for melodramas; melodramas can be accepted in private, like the movies and stories from which they are derived. Only the comedy seems lonely without its audience, and so we turn on the tube and listen to the sound of other people sharing the experience with us.
But they are not really doing that, no matter how hard the producers pretend. We are alone with the comedy, just as we are alone with everything else on the screen." (Grote 168. 1983)
Socially these products are adaptable to circumstances, but the genre of comedy requires an audience otherwise the laughter is omitted and it is not comedy. The main element of understanding a joke and humorous concepts comes from the connotations derived from the symbolic reading of the text. Comedians take objects and give them another symbolic meaning transforming ones opinions to the maximum.
This idea of a shared laughter suggests that our intentions and laughter be aimed, channelled into activation. By having a shared sense of humour then morale throughout that particular social group is maintained, identity is formed.
The social content of jokes is primarily that, they are social. Comedy is the medium of entertainment that requires a level of interaction and thought from the audience. They have to pay attention and remain aware in order to listen and understand the jokes and content of the comedy otherwise they become lost in the flow of humour. Isolated.