Media Journal A Critical Analysis of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

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Recommended: Analysis of The Daily Show by Jon Stewart

The Daily Show pronounces itself as a fake news program, and it pulls its comedy and satire from current news reports, politicians, media companies, and often, features of the show itself. The show usually begins with an extended monologue from host, Jon Stewart, communicating new headlines and regularly includes discussions with several correspondents, who assume ridiculous or amusingly overstated takes on recent events against Stewart's straightforward character. The concluding segment contains a celebrity interview, with guests varying from authors and political figures to actors and musicians. Critics contend the show is a major source for news for the 18 to 34 year-old age group because of their satire and sharp-witted lampoon of politics. Essentially, The Daily Show merges parts of both traditional news shows and late night variety programs. The show employs irony, embellishment, and fake news to criticize important current events or political issues.
Analysis
The Daily Show has established a distinctly diverse pattern, taking a hard political focus to their humor. The show’s content is definitively issues and news driven. The show uses bogus stories to mock actual print journalism and current events, which influences the comedic direction of the show. One of the show’s executive producer’s Ben Karlin states,” The main thing, for me, is seeing hypocrisy. People who know better saying things that you know they don't believe.” The broadcast also makes substantial use of news footage, often in a documentary way that uses past video to show contrast and contradiction, even if the reason is mocking rather than reporting. In addition, the show also mixes truths and imagination in a way that no news program ever would. Also, The Da...

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...). Also,” The survey also suggests Daily Show viewers are highly informed, an indication that The Daily Show is not their lone source of news. Regular viewers of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report were most likely to score in the highest percentile on knowledge of current affairs” (Pew Research).

Works Cited

Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, Bettina Fabos, and Richard Campbell. Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002. Print.
Warner, J. (2007). Political Culture Jamming: The Dissident Humor of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Popular Communications, 5 (1), 17-36.
"Journalism, Satire or Just Laughs? "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," Examined." Pew Research Centers Journalism Project RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2014
"The Daily Show ." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Apr. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.

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