Fresh Politics, New Media

The fall semester begins tomorrow at Towson University and I'm very excited to begin teaching my new Towson Seminar -- Popular Culture and Politics: Comedy, Entertainment, Celebrity, and Democracy . In anticipation of the semester, I spoke with The Towerlight , the Towson Campus newspaper about what we'll be doing in the course . In getting ready for the course, it seems that new items are popping up daily. Just today, David Brooks offered his humorous version of the Romney narrative over at The New York Times . As the parent of a young one myself, I found the following portion most funny: Romney was a precocious and gifted child. He uttered his first words (“I like to fire people”) at age 14 months, made his first gaffe at 15 months and purchased his first nursery school at 24 months. The school, highly leveraged, went under, but Romney made 24 million Jujubes on the deal. Usually uber serious in his commentary, it seems that even Brooks has decided to jump on the com...

Last week, I spoke with Washington Post journalist Paul Farhi about my research on the effects of political comedy programs and the freshman seminar on popular culture and politics that I'll be teaching at Towson University this fall. Farhi's article published in The Washington Post and reprinted on the web sites of a variety of regional papers ( Pittsburgh Post Gazette , Chicago Tribune, New Orleans Times Picayune to name just a few) quickly attracted attention. John Hudson offered his take on studying Colbert at the college and university level for The Atlantic Wire and Sophia McClennen offered a rebuttal over at the Huffington Post with student Remy M. Maisel. I too agree that John Hudson could use some help picking the right statistics to compare. He's welcome to enroll in my MCOM490 class: Mass Communication Research where we devote a few weeks to statistical principles. I'd also be happy to have Hudson visit my upcoming seminar. The full title...

It's been a while since I've posted, but it's been a busy summer. I've spent a lot of time preparing for my upcoming Towson Seminar -- Popular Culture and Politics: Comedy, Entertainment, Celebrity, and Democracy. I'm excited to bring my research interests into the classroom. As I discuss in a recent article in The Washington Post , academic interest in studying political comedy and Stephen Colbert in particular is growing at a rapid pace. In preparing for the seminar, I'm revisiting some political comedy "gems" from the 2008 election. Here's my favorite piece: Tina Fey actually offers a great summary of the clip and its significance in Bossypants . Stay tuned for more political comedy gems as course prep continues.

I'm happy to report that I've published a new piece of research in the latest issue of the British Journal, Celebrity Studies . The article, originally a part of my dissertation, examines the influence of celebrity issue advocacy messages (both video and text) on political engagement at the issue level. This new research emphasis on celebrity politics represents a new direction for my research on the impact of political entertainment. The case study for the research is Angelina Jolie's involvement with the global refugee crisis and the impact of exposure to her celebrity advocacy efforts vs. exposure to advocacy efforts of an expert on situational involvement, complacency, and apathy toward the refugee issue. The experiment discussed in the article presents some interesting findings about the relationships between receptivity toward celebrity politics and apathy and complacency, and the relationships between situational involvement on the issue and political disaffection....

Last week, President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage in a highly watched interview with ABC News'  Robin Roberts. The news media and political pundits have spent the past week or so discussing the implications of President Obama's statement , focusing on consequences for public opinion and the likely outcome of the November 2012 election. Some, myself included , have speculated about the political implications for states like Maryland that are currently embroiled in the debate. Others have spent considerable time reacting to North Carolina's vote to pass Amendment One banning same-sex unions -- here's just one example of how celebrity politics can coalesce around an issue debate. Beyond the polls and the speculation, some journalists have chosen to focus on the personal nature of the issue , a theme that dominates my own recent research on public opinion toward same-sex marriage. As I show in a new article in The International Journal of Public...

Jimmy Kimmel performed at the 2012 White House Correspondents' Dinner over the weekend. The routine is actually quite funny, unless you're Chris Christie, Rupert Murdoch, or Sofia Vergara. How many more jokes can we take about Chris Christie's weight, Murdoch's ill-fated MySpace purchase, or Sofia Vergara's Colombian heritage? Seriously though, Jimmy Kimmel did a pretty good job and the event was a big hit in Washington . As is custom, the President also delivered his own comic routine. Following on the heels of his appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Obama scored some good laughs with the crowd and both Kimmel and Obama got some jabs in at Mitt Romney. Here's the president's speech.     So who stole the show?

Apologies for the lack of recent posts, but here's a really great political comedy clip. Check out Barack Obama slow jamming the news on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (from Tuesday's broadcast). The Barack Obama slow jam was followed by an interview with Jimmy Fallon. The interview focused a bit on politics but primarily allowed Obama to appear as the cooler candidate for President (at least when compared with Mitt Romney). Jon Stewart rehashed the Obama slow jam on last night's episode of The Daily Show. In fact, Obama's appearance has drawn a considerable amount of attention from traditional and new media outlets -- it serves as the latest political comedy moment. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Endless Suffrage 2012 - The End of the Beginning's Middle www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook The general consensus is that Obama did a  pretty good job ...