Update from TSEM102:Popular Culture and Politics

It's hard to believe that the third week of classes is almost over at Towson University. We've been having a lot of fun in my Towson Seminar (Popular Culture and Politics: Comedy, Entertainment, Celebrity, and Democracy) and we've been reviewing some interesting video content

In fact, I'm struck by how much material the 2012 campaign has already provided. We spent some time talking about Clint Eastwood's Invisible Chair debacle at the Republican National Convention -- what a great example of celebrity politics gone wrong! If you don't believe me, see for yourself:



We've been giving equal treatment to the Democrats too -- a great gem from this past week was this New York Times article about Joe Biden's get together with a group of bikers in Ohio. The NYT journalist penning the piece, Sarah Wheaton, offers some spot on commentary regarding the picture featured in the article. Even she can't believe it's not ripped from the pages of The Onion:



While the 2012 election has offered some inspiration, we've actually spent the past few weeks taking a look back at the history of political comedy, talking about political cartoons, programs like Laugh In, In Living Colour, and Saturday Night Live, which if you can believe it, kicks off it's 38th season this Saturday with guest host Seth McFarlane (aka the guy behind Family Guy).

We've re-discovered the rich history of political comedy and have been studying the fundamental changes in the media industry that have further blurred the boundaries between news and entertainment. And for a real history lesson (at least for these college freshmen who were little kiddies in the late 1990s), we looked back at the case of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and the subsequent replacement of traditional old media news gatekeepers with new media newsmakers like Matt Drudge.

Just this past week, we studied the differences between the comedic forms of satire and parody, reading the work of Jonathan Gray and his colleagues as a guide. We learned about the four features of satire: aggression, judgment, play and laughter, and the value of understanding the original text when examining parody.

It's been a fun, educational, and eye-opening experience so far. Next week, we'll focus some more on political cartoons as Towson University hosts Kal Kallaugher, cartoonist for The Economist and The Baltimore Sun, how political comedy viewers perceive programmatic content, and how watching political comedy influences our evaluations of the mainstream media.

Stay tuned for more from TSEM 102: Popular Culture and Politics and feel free to watch along with us on our course blog.

We enjoyed this great clip just yesterday!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jon Stewart Interview with Rolling Stone

Image
Jon Stewart's mug graces the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone.  Highlights from the interview with Stewart are available on the Rolling Stone web site along with a fun gallery of behind the scenes photos .  For those who need even more Stewart, check out this video segment with Rolling Stone Executive Editor Eric Bates: Some highlights from the Rolling Stone interview: Stewart says that the Daily Show has a lot in common with Fox News. "We are both reactions to the news and to government," he says. "We're both expressions of dissatisfaction. Obama has been a disappointment to Stewart. "He ran on this idea that the system and the methodology are corrupt," he says. "It felt like the country was upset enough that he had the momentum needed to re-evaluate how business is done. Instead, when he got elected, he acted as though the system is so entrenched that it has to be managed rather than – I don't want to say decim
Read more

The Daily Show, Republicans, and the War on Science

Aasif Mandvi, Daily Show correspondent offers a funny piece on the Republican war on science. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes , Political Humor & Satire Blog , The Daily Show on Facebook The science fair kids in the video certainly seem a lot smarter than the GOP nominees featured in the beginning of the video or Noelle Nikpour, the Republican strategist. I'm putting my money on the kids and science.
Read more

Gay Canvassers Study May Rely on Bogus Data, but Social Contact Matters for Same-Sex Marriage Debate

Image
I'm sure that Michael LaCour hoped to make the front page of The New York Times many times over during his career as a Princeton political scientist -- preferably being featured in articles that talked about groundbreaking research (and real results), not his fabrication of a study with Columbia University political scientist Donald Green on the impact of political canvassing on public opinion toward same-sex marriage. The story of the "great gay marriage hoax" is a compelling one for academic researchers, policy activists, and the general public alike. The revelation by Green that the data may have been fabricated , has many reputable news organizations issuing retractions and apologies including Ira Glass over at This American Life . And plenty of academics were jamming up Retraction Watch, making it hard to access Ivan Oransky's breaking post as well as Brockman, Kalla, and Arronow's Irregularities in LaCour (2014) that noted the study's problemat
Read more