The Center for Inquiry's Susan Jacoby, author of the NYTimes bestseller The Age of American Unreason, appeared last night on The Colbert Report.
As Colbert remarked, he prefers emotion over reason and when Jacoby noted that few Americans can correctly identify the nature of DNA, Colbert answered: "A fraud perpetuated by science in order to make us not believe in God!" The segment is classic satire.
But Jacoby's appearance on Colbert does prompt the serious question: to what degree do shows such as the Daily Show and The Colbert Report contribute to the age of unreason, with younger viewers displacing traditional news consumption with regular viewing of late night satirical comedy? In other words, can young audiences have their satire and their knowledge too?
It's a favorite topic for students in my Political Communication seminar. As it turns out, researchers are divided on the issue. Some note that audiences for the Daily Show are actually just as informed as other regular news consumers (see Pew poll results below) while other research shows that in contrast to broadcast television, Daily Show viewing breeds cynicism among younger viewers. In a special section of a recent issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication, leading scholars debated the topic.
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These questions leave me dumbfounded for a couple of reasons.
First, the presumption that somehow satire is anti-intellectual and/or against reason. That seems completely counterintuitive to me. Taking points to their logical extremes, and noting contradictions or patterns in the data swamp that is news coverage requires some intelligence and thinking. Even dumb guy (or girl) jokes requires some element of thought to it. It would appear that somebody (or several somebodies) are conflating anti-intellectualism with irreverence. They aren't the same thing.
Matt also appears to make the presumption that we are supposed to take Colbert at face value during his interviews. It's very rare for him to break character during interviews (and that's usually to laugh). He plays these interviews as a pompous ass, and the audience is in on the joke. Researchers who conclude otherwise are likely missing some important parts of the whole process.
"...Daily Show viewing breeds cynicism among younger viewers." You say that as though it were a bad thing.
"But Jacoby's appearance on Colbert does prompt the serious question: to what degree do shows such as the Daily Show and The Colbert Report contribute to the age of unreason, with younger viewers displacing traditional news consumption with regular viewing of late night satirical comedy? In other words, can young audiences have their satire and their knowledge too?"
There are stupid questions, and here we get two (or should I spell that 'too' because I like a satirical take on politics, America, etc., and therefore don't really know anything?)
A better question: Why consider the abandonment of mainstream media as intrinsically bad?
A question more related to the field of this blogger: Why frame the abandonment of mainstream media sources as somehow detrimental, when it's just as easy to frame it the other way?
Its allowable (academic) to posit that satire and knowledge are two distinct realms, perhaps incompatible, perhaps not. But - via common sense - it seems to me that satirists are typically geniuses (Twain, George Saunders, Tom Wolfe, Colbert), which, I guess to qualify everything I just said, does not mean their audience fits the same bill.
Let's me see if I understand your question. The results of the Pew Research poll indicate that the viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are the best informed group surveyed. And from this some suspect that the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are contributing to unreason in America. It would seem to be otherwise to me.
The upsetting part of the Pew study is that the 'high knowledge group' are those that correctly answered 65% of the questions. That's a 'D'.
The Daily Show makes you cynical? What does listening to Limbaugh or watching O'Reilly make you?