The Daily Show Effect: Humor, News, Knowledge and Viewers ...

[Pages:151]The Daily Show Effect: Humor, News, Knowledge and Viewers

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

in Communication, Culture, and Technology

By Rachel Joy Larris, B.A. Washington, D.C. May 2, 2005

Copyright ? 2005 by Rachel Joy Larris All Rights Reserved

2

THE DAILY SHOW EFFECT: HUMOR, NEWS, KNOWLEDGE AND VIEWERS

Rachel Joy Larris, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Diana Owen, Ph.D

ABSTRACT What happens when the "news" is presented in an amusing format? The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the result of the merging of several entertainment programming trends, notably the news satire format and the talk show format. The Daily Show's unique formatting raises these questions for examination: What exactly is the political content of the program and who is the audience absorbing this content? Who consumes The Daily Show and what specifically are they consuming? For decades now, the youngest segment of the American public has been losing interest in the traditional sources of news. While their disinterest in traditional news has grown, they have shown themselves willing to consume news information from different sources. One of the most interesting new sources of news is the late-night comedy TV show. Because these programs have the potential to become important sources of news, it is important to see whether they are agenda setting for their audiences. Using two media consumption surveys, this project first constructs a political profile of the audience and then, through a statistical analysis of the guest list of the program, determines whether the audience's political viewpoint is correlated with the majority of the show's political guests. I found that The Daily Show audience is younger, liberal, and leans toward the Democratic party But the guest list of the program betrays no favoritism to Democrats or Republicans or liberals or conservatives. While a review of the guest list over time leads to the conclusion that the program is increasing its numbers of political guests, the host and executive producer Jon Stewart is not stacking the program with guests of one political type.

3

Acknowledgments

Alan and Pennie Larris, for encouraging my goal of attending graduate school and supporting me in all things. Dr. Diana Owen, for teaching me statistics, trying to encourage me to jog, and for your boundless and inexhaustible patience with your students. This thesis would not have been possible without your help. Dr. Stephen Farnsworth, for encouraging me to come to CCT, and aiding me with my thesis. Jennifer Howard, for being a sounding board and a scold when I needed it. You were able to make connections in my work I wasn't always able to see myself. Chaney Sandoval, a 17-year-old Daily Show fan who provided me tapes of old episodes which made some of my analyses possible. The People at The Daily Show, for providing me with the guest list and answering what questions you could. Also for making this highly enjoyable program. , for the best television discussion board in cyberspace.

4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Introduction..................................................................... 6

Chapter 2: Literature Review................................................................................... 14 Beyond Traditional News........................................................................... 18

Chapter 3: History and Politics of The Daily Show..................................... 23 The First Host....................................................................... 25 Jon Stewart.......................................................................... 26 From Kilborn to Stewart........................................................... 27 Political Comedy According to Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.............. 29

Chapter 4: Content of The Daily Show................................................... 39 Title Sequence...................................................................... 40 Set Changes.......................................................................... 42 The Monologue...................................................................... 44 Headlines.............................................................................. 47 Correspondent Pieces.............................................................. 48 Pre-Taped Segments................................................................ 52 The Guest Interviews............................................................... 57

Chapter 5: Previous Studies of The Daily Show......................................... 69 Annenberg Public Policy Center.................................................. 71 The Daily Show and News Programming....................................... 79

Chapter 6: Data and Methodology....................................................... 82 Pew Surveys........................................................................ 82 Limitations......................................................................... 84 Guest List Investigation.......................................................... 84 Entertainers........................................................................ 86 Politicians........................................................................... 86 Pundits.............................................................................. 87 Party Identification and Ideology................................................ 88 Limitations.......................................................................... 91

Chapter 7: Daily Show Audience Profile................................................ 94 Audience Demographics.......................................................... 94 City Size and Education........................................................... 95 Political Orientation of Daily Show Watchers.................................. 96 Ideology.............................................................................. 98 Approval of Bush.................................................................... 99 Binary Logistic Regression........................................................ 100 Uses and Gratifications............................................................. 102 Entertaining News Vs. Informative News....................................... 105

Chapter 8: Guest List Findings.............................................................. 111 Time................................................................................... 117 Who Appears, Who Doesn't....................................................... 119

5

Chapter 9: Further Research and Conclusions............................................. 125 Works Cited................................................................................... 132 Appendix....................................................................................... 136

Guest List.............................................................................. 139

6

Chapter 1: Introduction

"A lot of television viewers--more, quite frankly, than I am comfortable with--get their news from [...] The Daily Show." -- Ted Koppel to Jon Stewart, Nightline July 28, 2004

For decades now, the youngest segment of the American public has been losing interest in the news. Surveys of media usage for people ages 18 to 29 show they consume traditional news media--newspapers and network news programs--at much lower rates then either their parents or grandparents (Pew Research Center 2000, Pew Research Center 2004). This has led to concerns voiced by political scholars and politicians alike as to where this segment of society is getting their news and where they will get their news when they are older. The youngest generation's general disinterest in political news from an early age lends itself to the belief that this is the cause for decreasing levels of voting across generations because, as the youngest age, they do not gain an interest in news or politics (Patterson 2002). This disinterest creates patterns of non-traditional news followers who do not watch the nightly news and do not read newspapers. To many, this is a cause for concern. A view of democracy, dating back to the Progressive era, cites that the cornerstone of American democracy presupposes that there is an informed citizenry. Even our country's founding forefathers waxed eloquent about the role of newspapers, i.e. news, in their society. An uninformed citizen is one who cannot guide the actions of their government. In any case those who do not follow the news regularly are far less likely to vote (Patterson 2002).

When this country was founded there existed only one news format: print, specifically in the form of newspapers and pamphlets. As technology developed and evolved so have news media forums changed, grown, and expanded. Broadcasting, beginning with radio frequencies, then later network television and cable television, all became forums for news. However, as the news media have expanded they have also fractured into thousands of different audiences. Whereas a generation ago Americans' primary sources of news were limited to the daily

7

newspaper and the local and national evening news broadcasts on one of the three networks, today there is a plethora of news source choices. The burgeoning "new media" has been best defined by Richard Davis and Diana Owen as, "mass communication forms with primarily nonpolitical origins that have acquired political roles" (Davis and Owen 1998, 7).

Among these new forms is the late-night talk show. The late-night talk show generally has both comedic and interview components to it. In 2004, The Pew Research Center for People and the Press released a survey containing a widely reported fact that 21% of people ages 18 to 29 reported they regularly learned some news about political candidates or the 2004 presidential campaign from "comedy TV shows" and 13% reported the same of "late-night TV shows" (Pew Research Center 2004). This survey finding produced a flurry of hand-wringing from news pundits, as if the survey respondents said they were getting all of their daily news from the backs of cereal boxes. Some even misunderstood the survey findings, assuming they meant that respondents were primarily or solely getting their news from late-night comics. Pew's survey question only asked if the respondent ever learned anything from that type of program, and, if so, how often they learned something. "Do you ever learn anything" is a far cry from "where do you get all your news?"

What is surprising about the Pew survey results however, is how unsurprising they should be to those who pay attention to those comedy TV shows and to news programs in their current incarnations. Originally, talk shows were mostly devoid of political content and, although hosts from Jack Paar to Johnny Carson were not averse to making jokes about politicians, the nature of the content was not overtly politicized. Few researchers prior to the 1990s studied whether audiences claimed they "learned" news from the jokes of late-night comedians. The turning point for talk shows is usually cited as beginning with the 1992 presidential election when Bill Clinton appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show while still a candidate. Clinton was the first serious candidate to make a campaign appearance on an entertainment TV show. Since 1992, presidential

8

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download