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.
If you are able to stoop to there level just enough that they look at you as more of a relatable person than a politician then the stakes of them voting for you over another candidate will go way up. George bush took this into consideration after he made his first mistake of making fun of letterman. He Made the trip to not only "SNL" to recover from his failure but also appeared on "The Tonight Show". " By 2000, network news viewership had dropped to twenty-nine million, while the total audience continued to increase, to a hundred and one million households" (Kolbert, 71). This spike in views and the avilability for poloticans to go on Talk-Shows that the younger generation watched gave politicians the ability to connect with the younger generation unlike what was ever possible. This helped give the polotians the ability to become popular in the younger generations that don’t have a interest or desire in politics. The result of Bush and other politicians like Nixon going on these shows is the ability to relate with a younger audience, but other than that they are also able to stoop to the level of the average American by making fun of themselves and getting off their political
It is very common in 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 on advertising that year, from which $2 billion was 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. Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who belongs to the Democratic Party, broadcast the first commercial we will analyze, the title is “Seven” referring to the seven houses his opponent John McCain owns; Barack Obama tries to engage pathos which refers to the audience of the message (Ramage et Al. 2012) utilizing a form of fallacy known as “appeal to pity”, this fallacy tries to “appeal to the audience’s sympathetic feelings in order to support a claim that should be decided on more relevant or objective grounds” (Ramage et al.
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
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
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.
Appreciation of humor (versus comprehension of humor) is a subjective phenomenon for both comedians and their audiences and can also be dependent on cognitive as well as social factors. Zigler, Levine & Gould posit that “... understanding a joke invariably requires the cognitive capacity to meet the intellectual demands posed by the joke.” Jokes that are cognitively demanding enough are the most preferred (1967). Even if a joke is sufficiently complex enough to elicit humor, personal ideologies may disrupt understanding of the intended focus of the the joke. For example, political conservatives believe that the comedy-news show The Colbert Report aligns with their conservative ideologies and is trying to mock liberal politics.
From the beginning days of the printing press to the always evolving internet of present day, the media has greatly evolved and changed over the years. No one can possibly overstate the influential power of the new media of television on the rest of the industry. Television continues to influence the media, which recently an era of comedic television shows that specialize in providing “fake news” has captivated. The groundbreaking The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and its spin-off The Colbert Report have successfully attracted the youth demographic and have become the new era’s leading political news source. By parodying news companies and satirizing the government, “fake news” has affected the media, the government, and its audience in such a way that Bill Moyers has claimed “you simply can’t understand American politics in the new millennium without The Daily Show,” that started it all (PBS).
To become informed about the world around them, almost everyone uses some form of news to obtain their information, including television, news websites, social media, and even satire. Fake news and satire are often mistaken for one another. While fake news is intended to misinform, satire uses humor to make fun of current issues, such as politics (“Satire”). Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an example of satire. In the months leading up the election, SNL actors would recreate the presidential debates that took place, which provided their interpretation and comedy of the debates.
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.
Prior, Markus. "News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout." American Journal of Political Science. 49.3 (2005): 577-592. Web. 3 Feb. 2014.