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Comedy matters: On the impact of comedy

The academic study of comedy has grown in volume, significance and reputation in recent years. The emergence of new international comedy conferences, book series, journals, and programs for comedy studies scholars has contributed to the growing interest in comedy studies. Although comedy studies scholars are still sometimes asked to tell a good joke or questioned about why they study topics that, for some, are merely trivial and frivolous (and by implication should not be the topic of academic study), these requests are certainly becoming less frequent and less antagonistic. There is growing recognition both within academic circles and non-academic communities that comedy is an important part of our contemporary lives that warrants academic attention and scrutiny. Another important influencing factor in the increasing recognition of comedy studies is the Centre for Comedy Studies Research (CCSR). TheCCSR is a large, high-profile, and active international research centre devoted to the academic study of comedy. The CCSR was launched at Brunel University London in October 2013 and has rapidly built a reputation as an international centre of research excellence in socially relevant comedy studies research. As an interdisciplinary centre it considers the production, content, reception andwider socio-political implications of comedy in its variety of formats and from a range of perspectives. A significant proportion of CCSR research specifically focuses on production and intention, which is an important distinction between comedy and humor (Mills 2005). Comedy suggests ‘material whose primary purpose is one of funniness, usually created by specific people with that aim, and understood as so by audiences’, whereas a humorous situation is ‘something that can have just happened, without a deliberate intention’ (Mills 2005: 17). This distinction results in different research agendas, research questions and data sources for comedy studies scholars and humor studies researchers. Despite this, their respective research findings and insights have mutual benefit for both fields – taken together comedy studies and humor studies research results in increased,