Tell Me the One About Ebola: How Jokes Spread Awareness
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As the Ebola death toll rises, humor and music are helping people in West Africa deal with the horrors of the disease and its encroachment into daily life.
“Joking can be a coping strategy, and it can be a narrative device -- a way for people to reclaim their humanity in the context of anger, degradation and poverty,” said Ebenezer Obadare, a Nigeria native and associate professor of sociology at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. “And some jokes also serve to disseminate knowledge.”