Humor and foreign policy narration: the persuasive power and limitations of Russia’s foreign policy pranks

This article explores the persuasive power and limitations of humor in narrating foreign policy issues to publics. I focus on audience reception of humor produced by state and state-affiliated actors to advance foreign policy narratives, deflect external criticism, and ridicule opponents. This article examines Russia’s foreign policy pranks, widely assumed to be a tool of influence and persuasion, and their reception by their primary, domestic audience. Using focus groups to discuss pranks on the theme of mutual interference between Russia and the United States, this study relates participants’ reactions to wider foreign policy narratives and questions links between reception and political views. I argue that while humor drives the popularity of the pranks, their power to convince remains ambiguous. Their persuasive power is mostly limited to reinforcing existing views and already popular narratives, while both pro-government and oppositional publics expressed strong suspicions of their fake or propagandistic nature. Even when doubting the pranks’ politics, however, participants were entertained by their humor—suggesting that humorous narration of foreign policy presents means for increased outreach first and persuasion second. Any adverse reactions were mostly directed at the pranksters rather than government officials—highlighting how humor can be a politically expedient way of narrating contentious foreign policy issues to publics through proxies.