I run against the tastes of my generation in that I have never been much of a fan of Comedy Central's The Daily Show. As a recent study finds, I have always believed that the show serves a damaging displacement function, with many viewers relying on Stewart as their only source of political news. More troubling, the show generates political cynicism and negativism, while promoting a false sense among viewers of political involvement and sophistication.
But this recent take by the show on the Bush stem cell policy is hilarious, and offers a valid point: The Bush administration's position on the value of life when it comes to embryos is at odds with its policy on civilian casualties in Iraq.
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War on Terrible Diseases sounds like a good framing strategy, don't you think, Matt? :) This was great - thanks for laughs...
It doesn't generate the cynicism, the people that watch the show can generate that on their own just listening to the news, what they do is add that bit of comedic flair that comes from concentrating a specific topic into a joke (or series thereof).
What people like you don't understand is that the whole political world/process/etc is a self generating cynicismm machine, add a little water and watch it grow! As well, I don't know anyone that watches TDS and considers it their involvement in politics or some sort of tell of sophistication. I think its what people that fall for all the DemoRepublican government b.s. say to themselves so they can sleep soundly at night when in the back of their minds they know that people are making fun of their world view.
What has happened amongst young people is that they have this great desire to change things for the better, but they've realized two fundamental truths about government that their parents didn't, but that they learned from the actions of their parents.
1) take any two random people and their views of politics will fuindamentaly differ, take a room full and each person in that room will have a view that differes from all the others. They may share some basic fundamental views (socialism, fascism, libertarianism, etc), but the exact idea of how it should be practiced will differ.
so what you get is a government that will only ever make one segment of the population happy with its governance, no matter which segment you choose you will always alienate another segment.
2) Once a machine as big and gun happy as the U.S. government is gets running, you can no longer "change it from the inside".
so as much as they say "your vote counts" "voting matters" "voting makes a difference", we have realized it doesn't, it can't, it's impossible for it to. Then, even if your side "wins", it's a small victory for one or two concerns, because the two parties don't differ that much in the rest of their views or how they make grabs for social power.
The apathy is born of the system, the cynicism is born of the system. Eventually these young people will grow up, realize the best way to handle things is to *really* stop caring, like when the hippies turned into yuppies, and go along with it all as though its good and right to do so and watch again as their kids become politicaly rebelious and make fun of them for it.
I listen to NPR live, BBC (on NPR, XM or podcast depending) and read widely in addition to watching the Daily Show. What I dislike about most straight news (including often NPR and the BBC) is that they report uncritically patently absurd bullshit as if it should be taken seriously while dismissing as unserious legitimate criticism. The Daily Show points and laughs at the absurd -- which is what the absurd deserves.
The beauty of The Daily Show is that when our esteemed leaders make some kind of asinine comment that clearly refutes something they've said in the past, TDS researchers dig in and put together a wonderful montage of those instances in the past where said politicians said exactly the opposite. TDS points out hypocrisy in this administration than the main stream press ever does--not that the main stream press tries. If they did maybe more people would wake up to what's goin on.
Matthew... be careful, soon you will join the dark side of Stewart worshipers. You are on your way. Join us.
I don't know how often you watch The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, but much of their emphasis is on media's framing of the events, and not on the events themselves. Taken with a dose of NPR, it's all good (well, a little depressing actually).
In response to the study that The Daily Show has a negative effect: Given the poor state of our news media, as demonstrated here, and electoral system, isn't cynicism the proper response?
I blogged a bit on that study - I agree with your commenters and not the findings. If college students are shown a clip from TDS they are then more cynical and negative about both parties. Gosh. Maybe that's because the TDS clip showed the politicians lying? Maybe that's because the TDS clip demonstrated that cynicism is the only reasonable response? After all, as Bierce said, a cynic is "A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be".
Now granted I know few if, indeed, any college students, but the people I know who watch TDS read newspapers and are politically active. Anecdotal, I know, but flatly contradictory to the dire predictions made from the study's conclusion.