Dissertation presentation: POLITICAL SATIRE AND POLITICAL NEWS:ENTERTAINING, ACCIDENTALLY REPORTING...

POLITICAL SATIRE AND POLITICAL NEWS:

ENTERTAINING, ACCIDENTALLY REPORTING OR BOTH?

The Case of The Daily Show with John Stewart (TDS)

Dissertation PresentationDana NeacsuApril 13, 2011

AdvisorDr. John V. Pavlik

School of Communication & Information

Defense Presentation• Background information• Literature review• Excursus and rationale• Conceptual Framework• Research Questions (Q1 & Q2)• Data Collection and Data Analysis for Q1

& Q2• Conclusion and Need for Further

Research


Background informationThe Rise of Comic Narratives as

Journalism The popularity of political satire, including liberal political satire, is currently on the rise:■ CNN’s D L Hughley Breaks the News (defunct)■ NBC -SNL’s 30-min Weekly Update (erratic) ■ PBS’ Need to Know - Next Week’s News with Andy

Borowitz (defunct)■ IFC- Onion News Network's "Fact-Zone" with

Brooke Alvarez (30 min-weekly)■ The causes of this phenomenon are certainly

complex, e.g., questionable objectivity of the mainstream news (Baym, 2010)

School of Communication & InformationThe Rise of The Daily Show with Jon

Stewart – TDS v. SNL

SNL has never produced a “most trusted newscaster” as TDS has (Time Magazine)

SNL was never a “political satire” show (Jones,2010)it parodied newscasters’ style for cultural

ends ( and used satire for a small segment) unlike SNL, TDS has come of age within

a suffocating tabloid environment where “fake news” is a “breath of fresh air” (Colletta, 2009).


Literature review -- CCEPS• Comedic-Critical Enhanced Public Sphere school (CCEPS )• When authors talk about “political sense-making on television” (Jones,

2005), they engage Jurgen Habermas’ concept of public sphere (PS). • The normative concept of PS has been described as (a) an open forum

where individuals express views; (b) in a rational manner, (c) about government policies (Verstraten, 1996).

• PS is “a site governed neither by the intimacy of the family, the authority of the state, nor the exchange of the market, but by the ‘public reason of private citizens’” (Peters 1993, p. 542).

• PS -- the space where matters of general interest are discussed (Calhoun, 1992) -- has always been a product of the media.

• For Habermas it started with educated Western Europeans reading aloud newspaper articles and analyzing them in a pub.

• For CCEPS scholars, PS becomes an extension of late night talk shows. For these scholars such shows encourage both understanding of public matters and finding solutions to problems they raise.


CCEPS Literature Review: Summary

CCEPS credits TDS with revolutionizing journalism.

TDS is both informative and critical of the mainstream media and in the process it encourages and develops in its audience critical thinking about political issues and implicitly political activity.

CCEPS views TDS’ diverse comedic narrative as the source of its journalistic virtues

CCEPS is not monolithic (see details below).


a. TDS’ comedic narrative promotes critical thinking

and political activism. Many scholars credit TDS’s comedic narrative with adding “more intelligent, complex, and provocative analyses to the political landscape” (Gray, Jones & Thompson, 2009). ■ Baym, 2005, 2010: TDS alternative journalism,”

because it uses satire to interrogate power, parody to critique contemporary news, and dialogue to enact a model of deliberative democracy

■ Warner, 2007 “cultural jamming”■ Jones, 2005, 2010: alternative journalism■ Day, 2009; Morreale, 2009: TDS encourages critical

thinking■ Colleta, 2009: critical thinking and a shift in citizen

activism?■ Baym & Shah, 2011: emailing embedded URLs as

political activism.


2. TDS’s comedic narrative promotes its truth-telling critical function

Torosyan, Dempsey, Blessing, Marren and Sneddon have argued that TDS is a source of political news, despite TDS’s use of what Harry Frankfurt calls “bullshit” (2005).Stewart: You say that bullshit is not lying.Farnkfurt: No, it’s not lying. Lying consists in believing that you

know the truth, and saying something else.Stewart: It’s wilfull. Frankfurt: It’s willful. And the bullshitter doesn’t really care

whether what he says is true or false. [audience laughter] Does TDS engage in bullshit? Yes. But, according to Sneddon (2007), of “a superior

type,” because TDS does offer both political information and political commentary not available on other channels.


3. Empirical data supports the view that TDS encourages critical thinking and political activism (voting; emailing)

Young and Tisinger (2006): TDS was a “program designed to entertain but that functions predominantly as a political program.”

Baym (2005, 2010): TDS is an informative examination of politics and media practices, as well as a forum for the discussion of substantive public affairs (taking aim at Prior’s data interpreted to the contrary)

Baym, Warner, Peterson, Fox, Dorman, Young, Jones: agree that data support the view TDS is a source of political news which encourages critical thinking.

Baym & Shah: TDS encourages political activism (emailing).

School of Communication & InformationNon-CCEPS literature: Insufficient reliable

data to support the claim that TDS encourages either critical thinking or

political activism. Baumgartner & Morris (2006): TDS should be viewed

simply as a “fake news” program and nothing more.” Pavlik (2008): TDS is a fake news program Prior (2003) investigated soft news and its audience effect.

He argued that soft news had a minor cognitive effect on its audience, and that this reduced effect was further limited by its smaller audience.

Prior (2007) : all the existing data point out that viewers of late-night comedy, which include TDS, also report frequent exposure to traditional television news programs, so the informative role of TDS is unclear, in light of the fact that TDS is never the sole source of political information.

School of Communication & InformationExcursus and Rationale:

Does TDS Generate a pre-Established Reading

This dissertation sheds light on the mechanics of how comic texts (or at least this particular comic text) convey political news. The type of “openness” TDS’ comedy promotes is regarded here as emblematic of its manner of conveying the news, and of how it differs from how other media outlets convey the same information.

Through textual analyses it becomes apparent whether TDS enables multiple readings of its commentary of the news or whether limited in its openness, TDS’ commentary adds an alternative missing commentary on the news of the day.

Investigating TDS’ decoded text, through the prism of a segment of its audience, sheds light on TDS’ ability to evoke critical thinking in its audience: enabling them to use the given information in a manner which goes beyond mere entertainment.


Research Objectives - TWO1. Show that TDS, because of its comedic narrative

and the constraints essential to that narrative, contributes little to critical thinking, and to political activism, without further reconfiguration (reappropriation of TDS segments).

2. Show that for a loyal audience that thrives on a personal relationship with the satirist, it is likely that the suggested reading becomes the only possible reading.


Definitions and Conceptual Framework –Televised Comedy and Its Polysemy

As a television program, TDS’ polysemy is undisputed (Fiske). However, its comedic nature affects it in ways which remained unaddressed until now.

TDS engages in a variety of comedic discourse (Purdie, 1993): Parody: is the transformation of a text with the intention to mock an

existing (serious) text (Jardon, 1994). Satire: is a tool of criticism, or “militant irony” (Frye, 1975). “Two

things are essential to satire; one is wit or humor founded on fantasy or a sense of the grotesque or absurd, the other is an object of attack. Attack without humor, or pure denunciation, forms one of the boundaries of satire” (Id, 224). (Griffin; Jardon)

Humor: suggests something different than what is being said (Jardon).

Irony: is usually used to say the opposite of what you mean, underlining that contrary meaning.

Rorty pointed out, irony personalizes issues and makes the political context more easily understandable while diminishing its impact.

Purdie: comedic discourse relies on a well structured reading which bolsters conventionally sanctioned social hierarchies.


Polysemy• Decoded polysemy for the purpose of this dissertation represents

multiple signifiers activated by an audience which has cognitive and comedic access to all the encoded signs and activates different meanings for those signs.

• The joke “What is black and white and read/red all over?” could be polysemic if it engenders multiple readings as a product of activating all the encoded signs.

• If some audiences activates “what is black and white” into a joke, that partial joke is not indicative of the polysemy of “what is black and white and read/red all over?”. That is indicative of the multiple layers of meaning of “what is black and white and read/red all over.” In this respect, television shows have layers of meaning which come from the multiple cognitive signals they use: language, sound, gestures, moving and still images, music, and the like. But this very coding is not a sign of their polysemy.

• Polysemy different from layers of encoded or negotiated readings.


Satire and the Audience’s Meaning Making Participation

Todd Gitlin observed, savviness flatters spectators (1990).

Mark Andrejevik’s penchant for deflating linguistic euphoria: iSpy (2007).TDS is acclaimed as the political news show for savvy,

college educated adults who value intellectual flattery. TDS brings with it a badge of what Mark Andrejevic

described as “not being taken in by the machinations of the culture industry” (2007, 155).

Jack Bratich’s ontological approach to audiences: audiences as sites of power (2008).


Research Questions:This dissertation responds to the

following two questions:• Question #1: How does TDS’ comedic

narrative (primary text) work as a vehicle of televised political news? and

• Question #2: How does TDS’ audience decode its text?


Data Collection • Data collection

– TDS Episodes (primary texts);– Mainstream media coverage of the news

covered by TDS;– Media response to TDS episodes (tertiary

texts).– Online postings on social media tools;– Ethnographic observations of live audience and

online official fan site members.– Answers by TDS audience members’

questionnaire.

School of Communication & InformationData analysis

Methodology: Multiple Methods (Pavlik & Szanto 1994)

Close reading

Interpretive textual analysis

Discourse analysis

Bibliometrics (define tertiary texts)


Question 1:

• I answered the question by engaging in a close analysis of two data pools: (a) TDS episodes, the primary text, (b) and mainstream media coverage of the same news as that covered by TDS. The analysis relied on a close reading of the primary text which sought to identify all potential cognitive and comedic encoded meanings. My close reading focused on the audio-visual symbols used to encode meaning and their pre-existing cultural and political connotations, TDS’ writers relied on to convey meaning. Once I mapped out all potential readings, I interpreted the results to discover the primary text’s potential polysemy, especially whether it opened a critical discussion of the news or yielded multiple readings.

• Finally, I compared those findings with the results of a complementary close reading of the mainstream media coverage of the same news. This final textual analysis sought to address how TDS’ comedic interpretation of the news compared with other opinion news shows.


Example of Data Analysis: “Clusterf#@k to the Poor House" segment, Sept. 25, 20081. The text is organized into cognitive units:2. I examine the meaning making process of each

cognitive unit:– Audio-visual elements;– Comedic scaffolding;– Obscure cultural connotations

3. I identify all potential encoded comedic and literal meaning– I deem as preferred encoded meaning that which makes the

joke possible– I compare it with the cognitive units: it always matches

them.

Cognitive Unit 1:(1)ABC’s news

programming • sensationalist; • ABC’s role in TDS’

naming decision of its new segment “Clusterf#@k”

Preferred Encoded Meaning – Unit 1: JS views ABC’s sensationalist programming as flawedand TDS chose to name the new segment “Clusterfuck to the poorhouse,” because is transgressive and resonates with its political and cultural values: •“Clusterf#@k” sounds obscene, despite its powerful “messy” meaning; “•poorhouse” refers to a welfare institution for the poor.


Comparative Textual Analysis: TDS v. Mainstream Media

• I compared all the news TDS cannibalized for its “Clusterf#@k” segment with its TDS coverage to find out whether CCEPS’ view of TDS as alternative, critical journalism relied not on TDS’ critical polysemy (which was minimal) but on a critical “pre-packed” view of the news.

• As opinion journalism, TDS seems weak in message while high in emotion. The instant analysis enabled me to question scholarly admiration for TDS as something important and radical, as well as the apparent desire to promote it as something more than what the show’s host admits to be only the talk of “a comedian pundit talker guy” (Dory and Hayley, 11/1/2010, p 2).


Question 2:• The interaction between text and its consumer, of course, is

easy to simplify but hard to grasp. Here, in an effort to address this potential problem I embrace Morley’s concern about unrepentant valorization of audience pleasure (1992) and romantic scholarly belief in popular resistance to the preferred reading (or meaning).

• I argue that Morley’s position remains valid because, especially in today’s fragmented world of “narrowcasting,” when televised texts are aimed to satisfy fragmented audiences whose identification with the host or show’s characters is so total, that an oppositional or even a negotiated reading of the next is reasonably impossible. Faced with a myriad of nuanced textual differences, audiences are encouraged to search “a perfect fit” of views rather than come up with a negotiated reading, and switch the channel and make a different choice at their slightest intellectual or affective discomfort.


Data collection – Methodology -Tertiary Texts

• In my methodological search I discovered that bibliometrics, the quantitative analysis used in librarianship to trace relationships amongst academic journal citations (Lee, 2010, 717-734) can help me decide what texts have engaged TDS in a decoding manner.

• The stepping stone in bibliometrics, which arguably opened its usefulness to interpretive studies, is Henry Small’s development of the cognitive function of bibliographic citations (1978). Small argued that each citation and reference incorporated an idea which the citer decided to invoke in a specific context. “The idea may or may not coincide with that of the citer, but, to the extent that it does […]. the reference itself can be regarded as a simple and relatively stable symbol of that idea, a concept symbol” (de Bellis, 2009).


Example of Data Analysis• CNN- Anderson Cooper 360 degrees

– On March 31, 2009, on his show about “Obama’s New Auto Plan; the New North Dakota Storm and Madonna’s Adoption Controversy,” Anderson Cooper discussed a TDS segment from last year. Interviewing CNN’s Gary Tuchman on the storm’s coverage, Cooper stated:

• I seem to remember you being made fun of by Jon Stewart • [video clip: Stewart: The water was up to reporters’ ankles. The

water was up to reporters; knees. The water was up to reporters’ thighs. No. The mind-boggling waist shot. I remember in 2008 the water got up so high it went right up to Gary Tuchman’s nipples.]

• Reference or Quote interpretation: Cooper interpreted the TDS clip as “making fun” of CNN’s correspondent, which seems to be what Stewart was indeed doing, mocking, in his satire of CNN news coverage.

• Reading: CNN news coverage decoded the text according to its Preferred Reading.

• Decoded Polysemy. There is no question raised about the potential decoded polysemy of the text. The joke is clear. To keep it a joke, Cooper has to read it as it is.


Conclusion• TDS is a media phenomenon the mainstream news media relate to

frequently. • TDS’ encoding has little cortical openness;• TDS’ decoding varies with the narrative structure of the text, in the

following two ways.• (1) When TDS’ content was structured comedically, its jokes were

consistently interpreted according to their preferred reading for cognitive and comedic purposes supporting my earlier findings of limited polysemy.

• (2) To the contrary, when TDS did not have a comedic structure, which happened in one exceptional situation, when Stewart interviewed Jim Cramer, the media interpreted that narrative more diversely, and negotiated its meaning according to their own background of external knowledge. As the Cramer interview shows, most newscasters and other audience members engaged the text in a reading which reflected the encoded signs as much as their own show’s perceived politics.


Limits of the Present Research – Further Research

• TDS’ decoded polysemy proved harder to gauge with respect to its online presence. In-depth interviews with live audiences may be suggested but ethnographic observations of their unrestrained laughing and clapping during the taping of the show is rather substantial proof that they decode the show according to its preferred reading. Data collection of the silent audience’s reading could be possible through mass emailing of follow-up questionnaires. The limited data collected here, however, supports a finding of limited decoded polysemy, because they all found the show funny. to find the show funny the audience must accept the joke--its premise and the punch line--in other words, the irony and satire used to encode it with meaning. Finally, the way the online population, which temporarily associates itself with the show, functions creates almost insurmountable problems to gauging the way this segment decodes the text.

• TDS’ political satire, especially because it is coupled with Rortyan irony needs to be studied on an ongoing basis as its contingency fluctuates, and thus meaning and social role change, too.

• TDS’ label perhaps should be corrected from entertaining politics to entertaining media criticism.


References• Andrejevic, Mark. 2007. iSpy. Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence, KA: University Press of

Kansas. • Baumgartner Jody and Jonathan S Morris. 2006. “The Daily Show Effect - Candidate Evaluations, Efficacy, and

American youth.” American Politics Research 34(3): 341-367. • Baym, Geoffrey. 2005. “The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism.”

Political Communication 22(3): 259-276.• Baym, Geoffrey. 2010. From Cronkite to Colbert: the Evolution of Broadcast News.• Baym, Geoffrey & Chirag Shah. 2011. Circulating Struggle. Information, Communication and Society. 1-22.• Bratich, Jack. 2008. Activating the multitude: Audience powers and cultural studies. in New Directions in

American Reception Study. (eds. Paul Goldstein and J.L. Machor), 33-55. Oxford: Oxford University Press.• Colletta, Lisa. 2009. "Political Satire and Postmodern Irony in the Age of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart"

Journal of Popular Culture. 42(5): 856-74.• Day, Amber. 2009. “Mimesis and the Real in the Real in The Daily Show.” in Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in

the Post-Network Era (eds. Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey Jones, and Ethan Thompson) 85-104 New York: New York University Press.

• Downie, Leonard Jr. and Michael Schudson. 2009. “The Reconstruction of American Journalism Report.” Columbia Journalism Review available at http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of_american.php.

• Erion, Gerald. 2007. “Amusing Ourselves to Death with Television News: Jon Stewart, Neil Postman, and the Huxleyan Warning.” in The Daily Show and Philosophy. Moments of Zen in the Art of Fake News (ed. Jason Holt). 5-16. Malden. MA: Blackwell Publishing.

• Frankfurt, Harry. 2005. On Bullshit. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.• Frye, N. (1973). Anatomy of Criticism; Four Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.• Griffin, D. H. (1994). Satire: A Critical Reintroduction. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky• Gittlin, Tod. 1990. “Blips, Bites and Savvy Talk: Television’s Impact on American Politics.” Dissent, 37: 18–26.


References (Cont.)• Gray, Jonathan, Jeffrey Jones, and Ethan Thompson. “The State of Satire the Satire of State.” in Satire TV: Politics and

Comedy in the Post-Network Era (eds. Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey Jones, and Ethan Thompson). 3-37. New York: New York University Press.

• Jardon, D. 1994. Du Comique dans le Texte Litteraire. De Boeck.• Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. • New York: New York University Press.• Jones, Jeffrey P. 2005, 2010. Entertaining Politics. New Political Television and Civic Culture. Rowan and Littlefield

Publishers, Inc.• LaMarre, Heather L., Landreville, Kristen D. and Beam,Michael A. 2009. “The Irony of Satire. Political Ideology and

the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report.” The International Journal of Press/Politics. 14(2): 212-231.

• Morreale, Joanne. “Jon Stewart and The Daily Show: I Thought You Were Going to Be Funny.” in Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era (eds. Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey Jones, and Ethan Thompson) 104-124. New York: New York University Press.

• Pavlik, John, V. 2008. Media in the Digital Age. New York, NY: Columbia UP. • Pavlik, John, V. and Andras Szanto. 1994. Multiple-method Research: The Case of the 1992• Presidential Campaign. New York, N.Y. : Freedom Forum Media Studies Center.• Prior, Markus. 2003. “Any Good News in Soft News? The Impact of Soft News Preference on Political Knowledge.”

Political Communication 20(2): 149-171.• Purdie, Susan. 1993. Comedy: The Mastery of Discourse. Brighton: Harvester Wheats.• Ross, Michael L. and Lorraine York. 2007. “’First, They’re Foreigners:’ The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the

Limits of Dissident Laughter” in Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines 37(3): 351-370.

• Sneddon, Andrew. 2007. “Bullshitting Bulshitters and the Bulshitt They Say.” in The Daily Show and Philosophy. Moments of Zen in the Art of Fake News (ed. Jason Holt). 146-159. Malden. MA: Blackwell Publishing.

• Warner, Jamie. 2007. “Political Culture Jamming: The Dissident Humor of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” Popular Communication, 5(1): 17-36.

• Young, D. G. & Tisinger, R.. 2006. Dispelling late-night myths: News consumption among late-night comedy viewers and the predictors of exposure to various late-night shows, International Journal of Press/Politics, 11, 113-134.


•Thank you!

•Questions?

Dissertation presentation: POLITICAL SATIRE AND POLITICAL NEWS:ENTERTAINING, ACCIDENTALLY REPORTING...

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