Satire in Exile: Exiled Newsfluencer’s use of Satire as a Discursive Strategy

This article examines how one newsfluencer in exile employs satire as a discursive strategy to sustain counter-publics in autocratic contexts. Through a multimodal critical discourse analysis of twenty videos by Stephen Shiu, a prominent Hong Kong newsfluencer now based in Taiwan, this article identifies a range of satirical strategies used in his commentary, including irony, exaggeration, parody, mock expertise, profanity, insult, metaphor, rumour, and personal anecdote. Drawing from these findings, we discuss how, in this case, satirists in exile may help provide critical information when domestic journalism is silenced, articulate collective frustration through emotional expression, and preserve local Cantonese profanity as a form of identity politics. This article adds to the literature on satire and social media by showing that online platforms like YouTube provide newsfluencers in exile with greater freedom of expression than would have been possible in legacy media, as well as sustain critical journalism in exile.