As for satire, this question speaks to the issue of effectiveness.

When
will a piece of satire be well received and deemed to have possible
influence on a public? One perspective offered on this matter argues
that there needs to be an implicit agreement between the satirist and
the satiree (i.e., the audience member consuming the satire) that the
subject of the satirical material (i.e., the satirized) is worthy of
satirization. Two questions are usually raised when judging
worthiness: (a) Has the person being satirized made choices which
have led them to being a public figure?; (b) Is the characteristic of the
person being satirized a genuine example of human folly/weakness?
If you can answer in the affirmative on both counts, then the object is
worthy of possible satirization. So, there can be a satirical piece
about President Obama and how he often thinks very highly of his
intellectual abilities (i.e., hubris as human weakness). However, a
piece of satire about the President’s daughters, who have not chosen
to be public figures, and their academic performance would be
deemed off limits for a majority of the American public.

Landreville: The limits are perpetually being tested and redrawn.

Comedians and satirists push the limits of commentary on religion,
race, capitalism, gender identity, sexual affiliation, the political
system, stereotypes, and a myriad of other topics that parents
typically teach their children not to discuss around polite company.
However, the extent to which limits are pushed depends largely on
the media outlet. While television broadcasters and cable networks
have to obey Federal Communication Commission laws on obscenity
and indecency, print outlets and websites such as The Onion do not
have such heavy restrictions. No matter in what media outlet the
humor is showcased, I believe that calls for violence, bigotry, and
xenophobia are less tolerated as humorous. For example, The New
Yorker magazine learned that not all satire is perceived the same
way. Recall its July 2008 cover of Barack Obama dressed as a
Muslim and Michelle Obama dressed as a terrorist, with a photo of
Osama bin Laden in the background and a burning American flag in
the fireplace. [M]any people thought the satire went too far and
reinforced stereotypes…. This example tells us that there are limits to
certain groups’ tolerance of satire.

O]ne of the comedian’s roles is to test limits.

When we get to comedy as an increasingly influential way in
which citizens understand the political world, then… I get a little
queasy, because I think the rules are very unclear about what
someone like Jon Stewart is doing and what he’s not doing… I
don’t think we have a good way of thinking about “What is their
responsibility? What is it okay to talk about and how is it okay to
talk about it?”
Humor has always played an important role in political life. In
fact, satirists like Aristophanes writing in ancient Greece used
rich political satire and irony to expose hypocrisy and flaws
among elites and within policies and institutions. What we see
now is a media environment in which the former division
between entertainment and information has become obsolete,
hence we tend to think of political humor as a “new” thing. …In
reality, humor has always had a very natural place in politics,
particularly in democratic regimes where elected officials are
accountable for their actions and citizens look at them with a
critical eye.
Holbert: Political satire programming attracts a highly
knowledgeable audience (you need to know a thing or two about
politics if you are going to get the jokes), so does political satire
generate humor or are those individuals who are already
knowledgeable about politics selectively exposing themselves to
this material? It is most likely a bit of both.

As for attitudes and behaviors, there is no question… political

entertainment media can impact an audience member’s
attitudes…. However, questions still remain concerning how long
lasting these effects are, how well they stand up to counter-
persuasion, and whether insights generated from satire can
impact how other pieces of political information (e.g., from news)
are processed cognitively. On the behavioral front, there has
been work done on how political entertainment media exposure
can generate political discussion. Someone sees something
funny about a political topic and then discusses it with others, or
a piece of political humor is not fully understood by an audience
member and they talk to friends or family members about it in
order to gain some clarification about the message’s meaning.

Landreville: [C]onflicting findings… suggest that political humor

and satire are much more nuanced than researchers once
believed. Humor and satire can be complicated messages that
demand quite a bit of cognitive energy for people to decode, or
humor and satire can be fairly simple messages that people
disregard and do not pay much attention to. Both ways of
processing these messages (critically and uncritically) can lead
to different effects…. Thus, it is very difficult to summarize the
effects of such a diverse and complicated genre. However, there
have been links [found between] late-night comedy viewing to
increased presidential debate viewing for young people… [and]
to increased traditional media use for political information. These
studies are evidence for a democratizing effect of late-night
comedy. Other studies have found increased cynicism for
politicians after exposure to late-night comedy and a lack of
information acquisition and memory… It’s complicated.
In terms of the subtle cognitive implications of political humor,
one of the reasons that political humor has received so much
attention from scholars [is that] humor seems to hold a certain
persuasive capacity that other forms of discourse do not. Recent
work has… [found] that humor is actually less likely to foster the
kind of “counter-argumentation” or “argument scrutiny” that
serious discourse usually receives. …–[P]eople just do not
scrutinize arguments received through humor to the extent that
they do when [it’s] presented seriously.
Well, I think humor is a real… a very effective way of doing that.
…[W]e trust Jon Stewart, just like we trusted Walter Cronkite,
and I think that part of that trust for Jon Stewart is the idea that
you know who he is. You know that he is gonna make fun of
things, but he’s not gonna make stuff up. That he’s going to be
scrupulous about the kind of facts that he introduces. …I think
we’re gonna see what happens in 2012. We’re gonna see where
the youth vote goes. We’re gonna see whether new media
mobilizes people [and how it’s] gonna affect mobilization and
participation [over] the next couple of elections.
https://www.quora.com/Is-a-one-sided-satire-different-from-
propaganda
https://www.enca.com/opinion/satire-or-propaganda-who-can-tell
http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2015/03/23/what-is-satire-for/
http://thebluepaper.com/satire-and-propaganda/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/difference-between-satire-
bullying-annet-hoeijmans-boon
https://www.teenink.com/nonfiction/all/article/282362/A-bullying-
Satire/
https://yournz.org/2018/01/16/satire-versus-bullying/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/when-satire-turns-to-
bullying_us_5988aecfe4b08a4c247f24d1
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/2/6/harvard-political-
satire/
https://literarydevices.net/satire/
https://literarydevices.net/comedy/
https://www.britannica.com/art/comedy
https://iain.dk/when-your-satire-is-the-same-as-the-suns-
propaganda-you-dont-understand-satire/
The most important element of comedy is surprise. If your audience
knows where you're going with a line of dialogue, scene, whatever, it's
less funny (though it still may be funny). The greatest humor comes
from the unexpected. Some of the true comedic masters employ tactics
to lead their audience to believe that they know where a joke is going,
only to reveal the exact opposite.

The second most important element of comedy is sophistication. And I

don't mean that dumb comedy is not good...in fact, dumb humor is
sometimes the most sophisticated of all (as it touches on base human
instinct and thus exhibits a level of human connection that very complex
jokes cannot). What I mean by sophistication is that jokes, dialogue,
scenes are well thought-out and intentional - the comedian controls the
joke and applies high levels of intelligence and logic. This is often
overlooked, as most people (Hollywood included) typically consider
comedy as a lesser pursuit than dramatic projects, for example. Just
look at the joke (no pun intended) of a treatment comedy gets from the
Academy.

The third most important element of comedy is truth. If it isn't true (on
some level) it isn't relevant and thus isn't really funny.

The goal of comedy is to relate to another human being through humor,

to cause them to feel real emotions. Thus, its elements are all based in
effective communication and psychology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
https://english.tutorvista.com/literary-response/comedy.html