Introduction Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, people have been abandoning traditional news sources as their main source of information. This abandonment is largely due to an ever-increasing distrust of traditional news. In response, a plethora of new genres of news have emerged in hopes of obtaining this recently-separated audience. People have begun turning to these alternative media forms such as late-night comedy programs, online shows and blogs, and social media (Serfaty, 2011). Much of the content of these late-night comedy programs, such as The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and Saturday Night Live (SNL), is based on current political events. These shows’ conflation of political news and comedy allow viewers to become more …show more content…
This review will detail some of the research in this popular field. Also, this review will focus on scholarly research conducted during the 2000, 2004, and 2008 presidential campaigns. During this time, scholars have found that SNL significantly impacts the political activity of its audience. One way in which SNL impacts its audience is by influencing the audience’s voting behavior. Generally, this influence stems from particularly successful SNL skits and results in a decline in voter approval of the target of the skit (Baumgartner et al., 2012; Voth, 2008). Also, SNL increases the political knowledge of its audience (Cao, 2008; Young and Tisinger, 2006). Thirdly, as a corollary to the show’s influence on voting behavior, SNL also influences how its audience perceives political candidates (Compton, 2008; Flowers and Young, 2016; Young, 2011). Finally, SNL influences the actual political actions of high-ranking politicians who watch the show (Voth, 2008; Brewer and Cao, …show more content…
Flowers and Young (2016) state that the combination of Fey’s uncanny resemblance to Palin, ability to expertly mimic her body language, and use of nearly identical quotations caused the audience to immediately identify Fey as Palin. Young (2011) discusses the conflation of Fey and Palin by referencing a specific skit. In the famous skit of the spoof Katie Couric-Sarah Palin interview, Fey proclaims, “I can see Russia from my house!” (Young, 2011, p. 254) That phrase became associated with Palin for the remainder of the campaign and clearly made her appear underqualified for the vice presidency. However, Young explains that this was not a completely accurate quote from the real Couric-Palin interview. In reality, Palin had stated that Russia can be seen from an island in Alaska (Young, 2011). Nevertheless, the line caused a negative effect on the public’s perception of Palin. Furthermore, media and communications professor Geoffrey Baym claims that SNL’s spoof of the Couric-Palin was “equally, if not more, significant” than the real Couric-Palin interview (Baym, 2009, p. 19). This speaks to the large impact of SNL as the real interview was awarded a Walter Cronkite Award and deemed a “defining moment” in the campaign (Baym, 2009, p.
“Fake” news programs, such as The Daily Show, Zinser reasonably argues, have the potential to dilute mass media and deceive viewers. The Daily Show has been straightforward about its lack of legitimacy as a hard hitting news program, but “the show’s content and guest list suggest otherwise” (Zinser 367). Zinser indicates that The Daily Show should hold itself to higher standards because “people might well think they’re being fully or sufficiently informed while watching” (367). In other words, Zinser believes that if viewers tune in with the expectation of becoming informed and The Daily Show’s content consists of significant topics, the creators ...
Warner, M. (2010). Why Sarah Palin’s Attack on Michelle Obama Makes no Sense. Retrieved from CBS New website: http://www.cbsnews.com/news
It is very common among the United States’ political sphere to rely heavily on T.V. commercials during election season; this is after all the most effective way to spread a message to millions of voters in order to gain their support. The presidential election of 2008 was not the exception; candidates and interest groups spent 2.6 billion dollars on advertising that year from which 2 billion were used exclusively for broadcast television (Seelye 2008.) Although the effectiveness of these advertisements is relatively small compared to the money spent on them (Liasson 2012), it is important for American voters to think critically about the information and arguments presented by these ads. An analysis of the rhetoric in four of the political campaign commercials of the 2008 presidential election reveals the different informal fallacies utilized to gain support for one of the candidates or misguide the public about the opposing candidate.
Comedian Jon Stewart gives a speech on the Daily Show during the “Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear”. He wants the viewers of the Daily Show to realize the difference between the real and fake threats and to take a humorous perspective on most of America’s “problems”. Stewart also emphasizes to his audience not to take every person on the media by his word and not to overreact to everything they hear. He uses metaphors, comparisons, and hypothetical examples to get his point across.
Television has affected every aspect of life in society, radically changing the way individuals live and interact with the world. However, change is not always for the better, especially the influence of television on political campaigns towards presidency. Since the 1960s, presidential elections in the United States were greatly impacted by television, yet the impact has not been positive. Television allowed the public to have more access to information and gained reassurance to which candidate they chose to vote for. However, the media failed to recognize the importance of elections. Candidates became image based rather than issue based using a “celebrity system” to concern the public with subjects regarding debates (Hart and Trice). Due to “hyperfamiliarity” television turned numerous people away from being interested in debates between candidates (Hart and Trice). Although television had the ability to reach a greater number of people than it did before the Nixon/Kennedy debate, it shortened the attention span of the public, which made the overall process of elections unfair, due to the emphasis on image rather than issue.
When watching Alec Baldwin or Kate McKinnon on your screen, you cannot help but laugh. From McKinnon's eyes bulging out of her head to Baldwin’s impressions, audiences have their popcorn ready and remotes in hand to change to channel four, all of them waiting to see one thing- their political input. At 10:30pm every Saturday night, millions of Americans became amused by the political satire on their screens. Ever since the 1960’s, these television screens changed the minds of millions of Americans, and without television, presidential elections would have never been the same. Because of the influence of candidates using the television, America has become more of a democracy than it has ever been.
Roderick Hart and Mary Triece discuss the reconstruction of the President’s image due to television's “celebrity system;” Presidents are being stripped of their “distinctiveness as social actors” and are being treated and evaluated
I found that all the assigned videos contained a simplified commentary on the news. The SNL skits both focused very heavily on the personalities of the people in the news. Much of SNL’s humor comes from their exaggerations of people’s personalities. While both of the SNL skits were related to the news from around the time they aired, neither of them contained any factual information which couldn’t be found in the headlines of a major newspaper. While John Oliver’s show contains a large amount of factual information, he frequently cherry pics the opposing arguments which are presented to the viewer in an effort to make the people who disagree with him look ridiculous.
This essay will focus on the extent “soft news” has improved political discourse in the United States exclusively through The Daily Show, analysing episodes, critique of the show and public opinion. This essay will argue that whilst The Daily Show is not reliable as a sole source of political information, and its cynical humour could alienate viewers from politics, it has improved political discourse by challenging the standards of the media, and expectations of politicians, as well as creating a more informed, more analytical America public. 2. Research questions and possible answers: Politicians: Is there political support for TDS? Politicians from President Obama and Hilary Clinton to John McCain and Mike Huckabee have appeared on the
They fail to see the target of Stephen Colbert’s satire due to their political biases and Colbert’s dry, ambiguous forms of comedy (LaMarre, Landerville, & Beam,
While SNL would make fun of the presidential election, they never included any false
It was identified that pop-culture attributes are used to enhance the interests of the public to the candidates, to convey messages in more entertaining ways, to show candidates in a better light. The presented articles and books did not have any substantial divergences, but at the same time could be described to be limited in their scopes. None of the articles clearly specify the exact nature of the relationship between the use of pop-culture references by presidential candidates and their chances to victory. Additionally none of the works identified the extent to which the pop-culture references by political candidates affect their chances to be elected either prior, or post-elections. This is the current information gap in the literature.
In an age where social media sits at the forefront of global connectivity and communication, the political arena has never had been more exposed the unpredictable nature of public engagement and response. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the formality and ceremony of traditional political engagement has, to an extent, been abandoned. Throughout the course of the 2016 United States presidential elections, celebrities have used their status and personal platforms to voice their stance in the debate and name their preferred candidate. As prominent leaders of the digital sphere, the value of the celebrity voice as a vehicle for political endorsement is on the rise.