Provoking the Citizen

Abstract

Provoking the Citizen: Reexamining the role of TV satire in the Trump era TV satire has been commended for its ability to hold power to account and provide audiences with context and alternative perspectives to news events. Despite accolades to public discourse and journalistic integrity, TV satire is fraught with limitations including; its inability to change politics, its ability to encourage political apathy and promote a partisan logic. While this may be a counter-liberal response to the right-wing media and politicians it critiques, TV satire often preaches to a converted audience, the potential impact of which can lead to a repudiation of deliberative politics and increased political disengagement. Under the Trump Administration, America is experiencing more intensified demonstrations of partisanship and public distrust in political and media institutions. Furthermore, in a culture where satire has become reality and critical journalism has increased, its role has become problematic. By adopting a multi-method approach of content and discourse analysis this study examined whether TV satire could offer a different approach to reporting in the Trump era. The study found that TV satire is adopting solution and motivation building frames associated with advocacy journalism in an attempt to encourage audiences to engage with traditional forms of civic participation.

Online social environments and their impact on video viewers: The effects of user comments on entertainment experiences and knowledge gain during political satire consumption

“…Political satire has been coined as "the reinvention of political journalism" (Baym, 2005) that "represents a searching for truth" (p. 267). Funny jokes are combined with elements about serious political issues with an equal amount of substantive information to broadcast news (Fox et al, 2007;Haigh and Heresco, 2010;Kilby, 2018), which may eventually create an engaging societal message (Borum Chattoo and Feldman, 2020;Doona, 2020). Thus, eudaimonic entertainment experiences can also arise as the outcome of political satire consumption.…”

What shapes the cultivation effects from infotaining content? Toward a theoretical foundation for journalism studies

“…The pull toward infotainment has also given rise to the academic as well as public debate whether infotainment is supplementing or substituting traditional news and how messages from infotainment could affect the citizens in their worldviews. Some scholars argue that infotainment provides a way to gain a deeper perspective on political issues (Kilby, 2018) or serves as a gateway for viewers to watch more of traditional news outlets again (Baum, 2005). Others caution that an increasing or even substituting exposure to infotainment is alarming as it is feared to lead to a downgrading of political information (Jebril et al, 2013) and to cultivate a distorted reality (Appel, 2008).…”

Producing Journalistic News Satire: How Nordic Satirists Negotiate a Hybrid Genre

“…By working together, journalists and professional comedians can provide popularized policy and media critique to the public sphere. In the US, under the baton of LWT, this critically acclaimed and popular type of satire seems to be evolving toward investigative (Fox 2018) and advocacy journalism (Kilby 2018;Waisanen 2018). In the Nordic context, journalistic news satire is a rather new genre.…”