Tell Me Something Funny

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Falk
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Saturday Night ◽  
The Daily Show ◽  
Daily Show ◽  
Late Night ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Saturday Night Live

My grandmother always opens our conversations with “So, tell me something!”  When I was a teenager, I often felt paralyzed, thinking, “What do you want to know?”   But then I discovered a trick: I loved watching late-night parodies of the news like Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, and I would repurpose their jokes to make her laugh. That motivated me to watch more carefully, so I could remember the details to share later—and even to consult other news sources for context.  Although some might consider watching comedy shows to be “wasting time,” recent research shows their value: humor helps people remember information and makes them want to talk about it. When shown policy-related news with a punchline, young adults recalled the facts better and were more interested in sharing the information compared to those presented with straight news.  

scholarly journals From Disgust to Delight: Schadenfreude in the Creation of Left-wing Subjectivity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sophia Bliem
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Daily Show ◽  
Political Comedy ◽  
Daily Show ◽  
Late Night ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Guardian

<p><b>The concept of schadenfreude in the Oxford English Dictionary is understood as ‘the pleasure derived from the misfortune of others’, understood in this research as a sensation or “pre-cognitive intensity”, which affords the subject a certain self-satisfaction in an automatic, unconscious process. Left-wing, late-night political comedy news shows validate the use of a ‘justice-based’ schadenfreude, based on the perceived deservingness of the misfortune of conservative figures, as shorthand to inform and confirm their viewers’ subject position as liberal thinkers.</b></p> <p>By focussing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, this thesis sets out to claim that schadenfreude, both found immediately in Daily Show content and in an extended ‘mood landscape’ fashioned via remediation of the original content, operates to become a key signifier of left-wing subjectivity.</p> <p>Following Benedict Spinoza, this research presents a two-sided vision of schadenfreude as an ‘affect’, positing that it entails an equation of ‘disgust’—based on “trajectories of repulsion” from an external affecting body—and ‘delight’, along an axis of conservative misfortune. This project highlights the intersection between mediated schadenfreude and Judith Butler’s paradoxical elements of subjectivity; subjection, and becoming a subject. To develop this question further, the thesis turns briefly to right-wing spheres of schadenfreude, a secondary location to ascertain theextent of the ‘ephemerality’ of affect as it is placed in media structures.</p> <p>Through analysis of the show’s semiotic and rhetorical techniques of analogy, intertextuality, and vignette across various video clips on YouTube, and their adoption by secondary media institutions such as The Guardian and The New York Times, the thesis isolates the manner in which mediated schadenfreude works to interpellate the audience and craft a left-wing ‘mood’, using the conservative body and its humiliation as a site to articulate liberal political subjectivity.</p>

Repeating Something Familiar

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-188
Author(s):  
Rhyannon H. Bemis
Keyword(s):  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Present Material ◽  
Traditional Lecture ◽  
Course Content ◽  
The Daily Show ◽  
Daily Show ◽  
Late Night ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Informative Content ◽  
Development Course

Segments are a structured presentation style that is commonly used on late-night talk and variety television shows. Research has shown that shows that contain segments with both entertaining and informative content (e.g., The Daily Show) have increased students’ political knowledge. This study investigated how the structure of segments could be adapted to present material in classroom lectures to promote recall of both learning events and course content. For the first two units in a three-unit child development course, students experienced segments along with traditional lecture activities. Although performance varied across measures, results indicated that segments are a useful teaching tool to promote retention of material and recall of learning events. The use of segments in other types of courses is discussed.

scholarly journals From Disgust to Delight: Schadenfreude in the Creation of Left-wing Subjectivity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sophia Bliem
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Daily Show ◽  
Political Comedy ◽  
Daily Show ◽  
Late Night ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Guardian

<p><b>The concept of schadenfreude in the Oxford English Dictionary is understood as ‘the pleasure derived from the misfortune of others’, understood in this research as a sensation or “pre-cognitive intensity”, which affords the subject a certain self-satisfaction in an automatic, unconscious process. Left-wing, late-night political comedy news shows validate the use of a ‘justice-based’ schadenfreude, based on the perceived deservingness of the misfortune of conservative figures, as shorthand to inform and confirm their viewers’ subject position as liberal thinkers.</b></p> <p>By focussing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, this thesis sets out to claim that schadenfreude, both found immediately in Daily Show content and in an extended ‘mood landscape’ fashioned via remediation of the original content, operates to become a key signifier of left-wing subjectivity.</p> <p>Following Benedict Spinoza, this research presents a two-sided vision of schadenfreude as an ‘affect’, positing that it entails an equation of ‘disgust’—based on “trajectories of repulsion” from an external affecting body—and ‘delight’, along an axis of conservative misfortune. This project highlights the intersection between mediated schadenfreude and Judith Butler’s paradoxical elements of subjectivity; subjection, and becoming a subject. To develop this question further, the thesis turns briefly to right-wing spheres of schadenfreude, a secondary location to ascertain theextent of the ‘ephemerality’ of affect as it is placed in media structures.</p> <p>Through analysis of the show’s semiotic and rhetorical techniques of analogy, intertextuality, and vignette across various video clips on YouTube, and their adoption by secondary media institutions such as The Guardian and The New York Times, the thesis isolates the manner in which mediated schadenfreude works to interpellate the audience and craft a left-wing ‘mood’, using the conservative body and its humiliation as a site to articulate liberal political subjectivity.</p>

Assumptions About Science in Satirical News and Late-Night Comedy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Daily Show ◽  
Daily Show ◽  
Late Night ◽  
Communication Goals ◽  
Communication Context ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
News Programs

Because satirical news programs such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report pay substantial attention to science, this chapter considers their significance as sources of science attitudes and information. The first section of the chapter discusses general attributes of satirical news and how these may help foster public attention to, active engagement with, and understanding of science. The chapter then highlights limitations on the capacity of satire to communicate science, including the challenge of conveying the seriousness of certain science issues while using humor, the potential for audience misreading of satiric intention, the inherent divisiveness of satire, and the tension between communication goals and the authenticity of satiric performance. The chapter draws on studies that have explicitly analyzed the role of satirical news programs in a science communication context while also raising important unanswered research questions.

Journalistic objectivity and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Harris Parker
Keyword(s):  
National Identities ◽  
Close Inspection ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Daily Show ◽  
Daily Show ◽  
The Third ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
The Press ◽  
The World ◽  
Definition Of

The press is a constitutive part of our society. It helps create national identities and formulates society's understanding of itself and its place in the world. Moreover, a free press is indispensable for ensuring the vibrancy of a democracy. For these reasons, a close inspection of news, and an evaluation of its performance, is crucial. We must look to the development of the mass press at the turn of the twentieth century to locate the beginnings of journalistic objectivity and the type of news we are familiar with today. The first section of this paper offers a review of accounts of this transformational period, placing opposing theories within the larger framework of the frictions between cultural studies and political economy, and underscores the need for a holistic understanding of the period. The second section chronicles the press's articulation of its new professional tenets, offers a definition of journalistic objectivity, and reveals its intrinsic limitations. The third section details how the modern press's ideal democratic mandate has been compromised, with the influence of the press being used instead to ensconce powerful interests. And the fourth section outlines the calls for a redefinition of journalism in light of the failures covered in the preceding section. Finally, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is offered as an alternative journalistic form that transcends the dangerous dogma of traditional news outlets, allowing it to fulfill the democratic responsibility of the press by encouraging a critical and astute citizenry.

scholarly journals Parsing satirical humor: a model of cognitive-linguistic satire analysis / Raščlanjivanje satiričkog humora: primjer kognitivnolingvističke analize satire

2019 ◽  
pp. 231-253
Author(s):  
Adi Maslo
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Visual Input ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Daily Show ◽  
Daily Show ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Approach

Even though not all satire needs to be funny, it is the humorous element that makes it amusing. This paper attempts at explaining the humorous element along with the inner working of satire from a Cognitive Linguistic viewpoint. This paper proposes an integrated Cognitive-Linguistic approach to verbal and visual satire, and the humor ensuing therefrom. By employing Blending Theory and General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH), the aim is to structure a comprehensive ready-made model for future satire analysis. The present study analyses satire in the fake news TV format of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, a highly potent resource of both verbal and visual type of satire and humor. The results of the study elicit three main features of the satirical discourse of the show – ridicule, visual input, and cultural reference. Besides having significance for satire research, the results of the paper also raise questions on the general understanding of language.

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