General European Public Humour Database

This dataset is developed for a research project “Humour Scandals (Hu-Sca): A cross-national analysis of humour controversies in Europe”, funded by KU Leuven, Una Europa Research Acceleration Fund. The data contains an overview of humor scandals i.e. public controversies originating from humor and dealing with the boundaries of transgressive humor in public debate and their reception in legacy media for eight European countries between 1990 and 2022. The data contains quantitatively coded descriptive markers of each humor scandal (e.g. nature of norm transgression, actors involved, duration, timespan) as well as qualitative analysis of the way that the humor scandal was either justified or condemned in national legacy media. This data can be used for the analysis of the role of humor in socio-political conflict and the role of media in the creation and mediation of humor-related controversies.