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Introduction: Political TV & Mediated Citizenship
Jeffrey Jones – “Popular media outlets discovered that political content could be the hottest
commodity”
● Audience for network news is declining, but cable news is gaining a larger fragmented
audience
These shows take on many different forms:
● Cable shows (comedy and HBO central)
● Fake news, comedic public affair shows, sketch comedy (Daily Show, Colbert Report)
● Sitcoms are based on Washington political culture (Scandal, House of Cards, etc)
- Appeal for political TV → Distaste of Washington’s political culture
- Politics is inauthentic (little connection to citizen’s everyday concerns)
- Washington associated with corruption and greed
Political Spectacle → Role of politicans and media to construct an ideal image of democratic
engagement and national identity
● Nick Offerman – Washington is a “noxious stinkhole where very little actually gets done
because of backstabbing, deceit, and greed”
● Political TV allows us to better understand the political process (sometimes through
cynicism)
Rethinking Politics – Consider how all mediums of political TV help us to make sense of
politics, how we think about the broader politicial system itself
● Dick Pels – Political culture entails “the realms of political experience, imagination,
values, and dispositions that provide the settings within which a political system
operates, shaping the character of political processes and political behaviour”
● “Mediated Citizenship” – Describe our relationship to politics and our perceived ability
to participate in political dialogue
Concerns of Political TV?
Important to focus on how TV functions to mediate our understanding of politics
● Is TV encouraging or discouraging political participation?
● TV blamed for promoting passivity & cynicism (based on decreased political turnout,
although that returned to normal soon after the 1970s)
● Voter turnout is an incomplete measure of involvement in politics
● People concerned about replacement of news with entertainment as an information
source (e.g., Jon Stewart (Daily Show) called the “the most trusted newscaster)
● Research showed that most viewers of political entertainment were often more
knowledgeable about politics than traditional news viewers
● Viewers of politics comedy generally have a pre-existing interest… viewers of national
news may do so inadvertently
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Rethinking Television – What counts as TV?
- MEDIUM = Technological components + social/cultural “protocols” that inform us how
use it (e.g., TV is more than a box is receiving a signal… includes laws governing
broadcasters, cultures deciding what shows to broadcast)
- Significantly wider selection of on-demand channels… people can now decide
TV’s Influence of Network News
- Network audience declined from 90% to 46%, 29%, from 1980-2005-2012
- Fragmentation of audiences into niches (news + entertainment)
- Affects how audience are informed and how political concepts are understood
Eras of Television (Amanda D. Lotz)
Network Era
Ran from 1950s-1980s, dominated by ABC, CBS, NBC (defined what
counted as news and TV in a democratic society
Multichannel
Transition
Early 1980s-early 2000s, cable TV was more accessible, dominance of
news networks faded, viewers had 40-50 channels and 24 hour news
Post-Network Era
Early 2000s, end of network dominance, unstable broadcast models and
fragmented audience (everyone had different experiences with TV)
- Tough to find common channels that everyone has seen
- Elana Laine – “Increasingly difficult to study or teach TV as a
unified subject, even with a single national context”
- How does this influence our view of TV if we view it as several
clips, or on-demand (e.g., Inside Amy Schumer was viewed more
on-demand than linear television)
Politics & TV Industry
- Rules of media ownership change with technology
- Most channels owned by small number of giant media corporations
- So, has the expansion of shows REALLY democratized TV?
Types of Intergration
● VERTICAL – Companies build ‘upwards’ and can own many companies at all levels of
the supply chain → Allows them to influence what they produce
- Can own production studios, movie theatres, and even TV stations
● HORIZONTAL – Companies own properties across industries
- Allows a small group to control much of entertainment culture
- Also makes it difficult for smaller, independent stations to survive
- Example: Comcast controls a large share of the cable TV market so that they
have a lot of leverage in selecting content
Holt → Recent history of media ownership is concerned with “empire building”, the process of
“amassing power and centralizing control”
- Works against the needs of consumers and citizens
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Affililate Stations
- Some are locally owned, but others owned by large organizations
● Sinclair Broadcast Group operated 164 local affiliates… used to reach and
support political causes and candidates… showed a documentary before the
2004 election that criticized John Kerry for extending Vietnam War
- Large influence on political opinion that is spread from these affiliates
● Federal communication commission (FCC): Regulates media industries, enforces
mandate that TV should serve public interest, providing a diversity of viewpoints
- Comcast & Time Warner (2014) → Comcast tried to buy Time Warner, would have given
access to over 30 million cable subscribers
- Not the content that is political (politics shaped by media ownership and govement)
Political Advertising
- Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission (FEC) → Prohibited government from
restricting political spending
● Reversed rules that prevented directly endorsing political candidates
● Increase in flow of money into politics
● Many want to overturn this ruling (protect democratic participation)
- Governments “go big or go home” and a lot of money into political advertising
- Funds allow direct access to politics → Shape legislation to exclude others and distorts
the political process
Importance of Genre – Political TV is important for informing the public and making sense of
political and social concerns (done through genre)
- Geoffrey Baym – Should treat news as a genre, with conventions and expectations
- Stuart Hall – News media relies on “primary definers” (define parameters of a topic,
what topics are worthy of attention and how they should be covered)
● Dramatic events… lead to untradtional journalist and sources (deaths of Michael
Brown and Freddie Gray)
● Videos & photographs taken provide reporters with different style of material
(Lance Bennet, Regina Lawrence, etc)
Entertainment Programming – Allows users to sort through political meanings
● John Ellis – Entertainment TV provides a way for people to work through complex
political content that may be difficult to absorb otherwise
- Scandal addresses police brutality concerns through an ethical dilemma
- Important to recognize value of political TV to shape our view of politics in every
day life
Political TV & Intertextuality – Two Reading Strategies For Understanding Political TV
1) Intertextuality
2) Melodrama Intertextuality – All textual meanings depend on other meanings proposed by
other texts
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Guides our Interpretation of Texts
- Each reception of text is embedded in a wider text
- Keren Tenenboim – Political TV overlaps and intersects with other texts, but also with
social uses of particular texts
● Audiences help shape the meaning or significance of text
● Viewers opinions are shaped by others
Jonathan Grey – Two Types of Intertextuality
1. Supportive – Texts that primarily promote or support other texts (ads, trailers,
interviews, promotional articles)
2. Critical – Texts that primarily attack other texts, often taking things out of context
(parody, negative ads)
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Economic Complicity – Shows are also businesses that generate high revenue
Textual Complicity – Provides context with parody for increasing the effect
- Parody can be used as a powerful rejection of political authority, but has
significantly positive effects on holding politicians and media accountable
Melodrama – Serves as a vital role in political sense-making
- Often uses heroes and villains to engage in larger justice issues
- Used to be treated negatively (because of soap operas) but recently has been adapted
to tell powerful political stories
Williams – Four Main Components of Melodrama
1. Use of Suspense
● Anticipation as audiences await resolution of dangerious situations
● Jason Mittel – Uses it to generate “an engaging political response to feel the
difference between competing moral slides”
2. Issue of Moral Legibility – Who will the viewer conclude deserves to survive the story?
3. Space of Innocence – Need to believe that moral good can be located/restored
4. Excess in Emotional & Aesthetic Forms – Instead of reading melodrama in excess,
re-cast it as a form that opens up larger questions of social and political justice
Example: The Wire (Melodrama of Dysfunctional Systems)
- Analyzes failures of low-level institutions
- Shows how melodrama can be used to question justice within ‘war on drugs’
- Devoting resources to war on drugs is a big mistake, doesn’t fix social problems
Categories of Political Drama
1. Melodramas of Political Process → Dramas that depict aspects of political governance
(e.g., passing legislation, conducting trials, etc) – THE WEST WING
2. Melodramas of National Security → Engage with moral/ethical questions protecting
nation’s citizens from attack, generally by external threats – 24, HOMELAND, THE
AMERICANS
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Political TV & Citizenship – How does political TV fit into the concept of citizenship?
● Entertainment TV has been said to be “harmful” to political citizenship
● Robert Putnam – Watching TV is passive, prevents one from actually involving
themselves, those who watch TV may become “socially withdrawn”, concerned that “TV
steals time”, and that talk shows produce a false sense of community
● Jeffrey Scheurer – TV creates a “sound bite society”, where political messaging has
been simplifed and complex ideas that have filtered out (leads to narrow views), we are
seduced by political characters rather than engaging in complex ideas
● Neal Postman – Many visual biases in TV, makes politics more shallow, substantial
issues are “put under the desk”, contributing to superficial thinking
Mediated Citizenship → Political TV allows for negotiation/engagement in a variety of ways
- Should understand it as essence of political activity, not a distraction
- Building block for politicla activism and self-expression
Road Ahead
In a fragmented environment, entertainment helps audiences engage with the content
● Example: Cameos from entertainment shows news channels, storylines from political TV
used in debates, etc
● Jason Mittel – Must recognize cultural, political and industrial factors that contribute to
production and evolution of genres
- “Cultural genre” plays a vital role in talking about citizenship
- Genres allow us to see how political news has evolved
Chapter 1: Selling Politics: Advertising after Citizens United
POLITICAL ADVERTISING
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Easiest way to ensure airtime
Creating a beneficial narrative
Positioning a candidate
Solution to a current problem
Shaping political messaging and wider
perpeptions about political culture`
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May involve a catch-phrase (“Make
American Great Again”)
Waldman: “Coherent, appealing story”
Economic role of advertising in
shaping elections
Multiplier effect within the population
Citizens United & The Shadow Primary
CITIZENS UNITED → Court case that resulted in a massive influx of money into politics
- Went towards advertising at the state level (fewer opportunities to define themselves to a
wider voting public)
● During the 2010 election, political ads accounted for 11% of spending at local TV
● During the 2012 election, revenue grew by $500 million
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Generally, outside political spending went to negative ads
● Public Citizen Study – 86% of spending went towards negative advertisements
● 2008 North Carolina Race ($82 million)
● 2014 Colorado Senate Race ($70 million)
● 2014 Iowa Senate Race ($61 million)
THE SHADOW PRIMARY
● Political donations have an effect on judge elections (only legal in some states)
● By 2016, large amounts of unregulated money in politics
● Koch Industries → Intended to make $889 million available to the presidential candidate
they supported
- Event was private (minimally covered by press) and the Koch brothers chose the
possible candidates
- Koch mentioned promoting certain causes, and candidates embraced these
positions to get Koch’s support
- Focus was on securing an endorsement rather than collecting votes (increased
control over political process)
Political Advertising – Creation of a narrative to position a candidate as providing a solution
for important issues
● Paul Waldman → Successful because “the winner tells a coherent, appealing story”
● Ronald Reagon → Uses Iran hostage crisis to craft a narrative around the idea of
“restoring American’s greatness”, which was captured in “Prouder, Stronger, Better” ad
● Obama → Used words like “hope” and “change” to create a view of less cynical politics
NEGATIVE ADS → Ads put out to target or attack an opposing candidate and shape citizen’s
perceptions about the candidate or their narrative
- Results in free airtime because the media will spend time analyzing it
- Can shape perceptions of government policies
- Misleading, play to people’s fears and can introduce stereotypes to get their point across
EXAMPLES
1. Lyndon Johnson’s “Daisy” → Targeted opponent on the basis that he may start a
nuclear war (girl was playing in a daily field, counting daisies which became counting
down until a nuclear bomb was set off)
● Incredibily effective (endured Cuban Missile Crisis Threat)
2. Lee Atwater “Willie Horton” → Targeted opponent on the basis that he would allow
violent crimes to continue
3. Obama & Romney’s “My Job” → Leaked an audio track from Romney implying that he
would divide the government, played over pictures of retirees, blue collar workers,
veterans, to give the idea of inclusiveness
● Positioned Mitt Romney as “only concerned about the wealthy”
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4. “Harry & Louse” → Ad targeted Bill Clinton’s healthcare campaign (showed a suburban
couple drowning in medical bills, and then happier when free from them), encouraged
viewers to go express opposition to the bill
5. McChesney and Nichols – Ads are cheap to produce, and use controversy to drive
their news coverage (important when fighting for airtime)
● However, controversial ads are critiqued highly and carefully
Viral Politics – Online videos are important in shaping election outcomes and promoting new
forms of activism (encourages viewers to become more involved in the political process)
● 2006 Senate Election → George Allen used a racial slur; his image became tarnished
and lost a narrow election (probably would have won without that)
● Phillip de Vellis “Vote Different” → Showed a scene from 1984 which showed Hillary
Clinton giving progressives a false choice, push for Obama to be elected
● MOST SIGNIFICANT EXAMPLE: “Chicago Tea Party” → Idea that Rick Santelli put
out there in the ongoing fight to oppose the HASP planned incentive program
- Amplified by an opposition movement fighting Obama
- Became a powerful look to advocate for Tea Party policies
INTENTIONAL
- Political TV ads
- News stories
- Songs & Memes
UNINTENTIONAL
- Popularly-generated
- Tea party ← Rick Santelli rant
- 47% ← Romney’s
- Confronting politicians, etc
- ‘Gotcha’ videos
CONCLUSION – Political advertising has:
● Polluted the political process
● Led to more confusion by playing to low-information voters who take claims at face value
● Ads probably won’t be encountered in isolation (mediated citizenship)
WK 3 ARTICLE: SAGE: POLITICAL DEBATES (MCKINNEY)
*Discusses the importance of political debates on candidates and platform perception*
EARLY DEBATES – First debate was in 1960 with John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon
Innovation in campaigning = Politicans’ public communication directly the people in real time
- Established the tradition (since 1972) of debates for all levels of office
- One of the most useful and significant forms of campaign communication
- Debates reach incredibly large audiences
● 80% of US population viewed at least one of the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon debates
● First 2016 Clinton/Trump debate had a viewership of 84 million people
● Popular topic of analysis for political communication scholars (over 1000 studies
focusing on presidential campaigns)
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DEBATES MATTER – Although debates reinforce pre-existing candidate choice, they also
affect change in committed/undecided voters and these people ultimately influence the election
RESULTS
- Little change in candidate preference recorded after watching general election debates
- Candidates provide an “information-rich” source of campaign communication, and
debate perception influences views on character traits
- Debate viewing enhances citizen’s sense of political efficacy
DEBATE CONTENT – Content analysis (research) is exploring various features of debate
content (verbal and visual messages)
Three Primary Functions of Candidates’ Verbal Messages:
1) Acclaiming themselves
2) Attacking their opponent
3) Defending themselves when attacked
RESULTS
● Candidates focus more on campaign issues rather than candidate character
● Candidates attack less frequently in primary vs. general election debates, BUT, primary
candidates acclaim more frequently than do general election candiates
● Less policy discussion in primary vs. general election debate
● Candidates attack their own party more than the opposition party in primary debates
● Rhetorical Analysis → Application of rhetorical criticism to examine debate messages
How has social media/analysis been incorporated into debate research?
Majority of TV watchers watch debates while using a “second screen” → Social watching
IMPORTANT RESULTS
Those who have greater interest in the ongoing campaign and who talk about politics with those
around them are more likely to tweet while watching debates
● Register greater confidence in political knowledge
● Report greater satisfaction with debate viewing experience
● Perceive the debates to be more important
DEBATE VIEWERS
- Tweet more about candidate image than issues
- Comments are more frequently directed towards candidates they oppose
- Highly polarized, in a more negative tone
- Debate viewers who were on social media during the debate were not as accurate in
recall of candidates’ issue discussion
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RELEVANT OR USEFUL?
Voter-Impact
● Largely reinforce pre-exisitng
candidate choice
● Undecided and weakly committed
voters
Information-Impact
● Information-rich source of campaign
communication
● Facilitate viewers’ acquisition of issue
knowledge
● Influence viewer perceptions of
candidate character or image traits
Citizen-Impact
● Prompting greater participation
● Enhances citizens’ sense of political
efficacy
● Decreases political cynicism
● Strengthens support for political
institutions
Viewer Connection
● Multiple platforms: TV, online,
Facebook, Twitter, mobile apps, etc
● Campaign issues & platform over
candidate
● Social watching: Watch & comment
● Distracted viewer: Less informed
about content or correct in recall
CHAPTER 2: POLITICAL NEWS IN THE POST-NETWORK ERA
Goal – Role that contemporary cable news serves in making sense of political culture
● 1st → Role of cable news in engaging with/producing Presidential election narratives
● 2nd → Addresses disruptive events that unsettle Washington’s political consensus
How Political News Incorporated Entertainment
- When TV began, there were concerns about it being used to serve public interest
- ABC, CBS, NCB had nightly news (separated news from entertainment)
- Some networks killed/downplayed stories because of connection to ads
● Example: 60 minutes → Killed a story implying that CEOS of major companies
lied when they claimed to be aware that nicotine was addictive
- Became more difficult to cover everything relevant as 24-hour news was introduced
- Jones: 1980s → News was re-branded as a form of entertainment
● Caused broadcasters (Jonathan Klein, CNN) to produce “emotionally-gripping,
character-driven stories”
● Content was produced to attract a main audience, not just be informative
● CNN tried to remain traditional, just with more advanced media formats
● Promoted itself as a non-partisan source, a brand identity that may make the
production of community more complicated
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Two Strategies to Retain Viewers
● Channel branding
- Jones – “Use politics as the central identifying marker of a brand”
- Promote products associated with the brand
- Offers sense of immersion in a wider culture (mediated citizenship)
● Community building
- Build relationships with viewers by inclusivity or exclusivity of others who don’t
share similar views
● One evolution of info-tainment = production of scandals designed to produce outrage
● Creates a form of “reality TV”, invites viewers to take sides
Evolving Genre of News
Timeline of history of televised news is based on THREE KEY TECHNOLOGICAL MOMENTS
1) Network Era – Mandatory to provide some of daily programming serving public interest,
provide equal time to parties on all sides of an important issue
2) Multichannel Transition – Cable first became popular, CNN launched to provide
24-hour coverage, challenged models that required TV to serve the public interest
3) Post-Network Era – Larger selection of channels, growth of on-demand programming,
contest the growth of cable and traditional broadcast news, especially with younger
viewers → Much more insatiable and deregulated news delivery
On-Demand News – Widely shared belief that news is becoming a niche product
● Fragmented viewing environment → Leads to niche channels
● Safe Havens → Environments where members are shielded from views that do not
match their own
Sometimes, ideological stories contradicted by factual data causes story breakdown
1. 2012 Presidential Election
- Obama would clearly win, but Fox News created a narrative about the election
and it was contradicted by mathematics
2. MSNBC
- Planned to launch to provide analysis across the political spectrum
- Keith Olbermann had commentaries that drew in audiences, such as “the worst
person in the world” (geared towards Bush Adminstration)
- Because of this, network re-branded as liberal alternatives to Fox
- Commercials promoting MSNBC took on this political stance too
- Began to address audiences’ values, tastes, beliefs, and emotions
Niche News – What effects does niche news have on the broader political culture?
Critics (Arceneax & Johnson) – “Threatens functioning of American democracy as politics
increasingly becomes two strongly opposed ideological camps talking past each other rather
than deliberating toward public policies
● Divergence in news seen as a decline in democracy
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Stroud – Explanations for how partisan media changes how we view politics
● Can promote political participation (donations, pledges) in minority who watch cable
● News channels can become directly involved in political process
● “Partisan elective exposure” (seeking out news media reinforcing a single perspective)
can prevent voters from making informed decisions
● Potentially oblivious to opposing views, or aware but deny validity
● Example: Chris Mooney – Divide on global warming, where most conservatives knew
about consensus with GW, but didn’t trust scientists… maybe viewers with these beliefs
continue to consume conservative TV where beliefs are validated
● Poll answers could also be explained by defiance against a certain candidate/stance
Niche news creates narratives setting agenda for other forms of political coverage
● Jeffrey P. Jones – Declared a “war” on Christmas (Liberal), manufactured outrage and
created a literal war over an artificial threat
Issues that recieved attention from media often become issues that viewers are concerned with
● Political media helps define stakes of politics
● Shapes candidate characteristics, more than their campaigns (focus in 2016 elections)
Why worry about Niche News?
- Oulette: ‘Niche news audiences’
- Select news personalities
- Direct product marketing
Arcenaux & Johnson: Threatens democracy → Echo-chambers vs. Debates
Stoud
● Partisan media = more activism
● ‘Partisan selective exposure’
● Less political knowledge and facts
PROBLEM:
● May be aware of opposing views
● Likely deny validity not through
debate, facts or arguments
Jones: ‘Manufactured outrage’
● Similar to social media (mis-contextualized stories, partial facts, flame wars)
● Opinions or unfounded claims = ‘Alternative facts’
What of ‘Professional Bias’?
Iyengar → Journalists = Biases
themselves
● Issues = What’s important
● Stakes = Why matter?
● Politicians = Who should address?
Bennett: ‘Candidate challenge’
● Policy does not equal important, depth,
impact
● Superficial stories, personality issues,
technical errors
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News & Election Narratives – How the news shaped the 2016 election
News shows function to define candidates and boundaries of who is a serious candidate
● Lance Bennett – “Elections… most important storytelling ritual, where we remind
ourselves with help of candidates, what we stand for as a people, what our challenges
are, where the next chapter is heading, and who may be the best to lead us there
● News analyses created candidate narratives serving two functions:
1. Create artificial obstacles for candidates
2. Define what counts as a “legitimate” contribution to Washington politics
● Journalists may also become infatuated with covering the process and not
matters of political policy
Example: FOX NEWS
Fox news had a huge impact on who competed in 2016 debates
● Narrowered down from 16-10 for first debates (criticized for exclusion)
● Hyped up Trump as being “unpredictable”
● Created a competition for who would appear on primetime
● Led to huge benefit for Fox
Example: TRUMP
● Made inflammatory comments about immigration and other important topics
● Comments condemned by media; some deals terminated
● Despite this, Trump’s poll numbers continued to rise (news coverage isn’t everything)
● Morning Joe criticized him immensely and gave him free airtime, which created an image
of a campaign that attacks Washington
Example: CLINTON
● Clinton focused on electability rather than policy promotion
● Everything was framed like “Could Clinton still win ___ if some people oppose ___?
● Clinton may run again, so media had pre-existing narratives for her candidacy
● Coverage of Clinton showed that politics is more aesthetic than rational
● Fox News attacked Clinton the hardest:
- Shaped Clinton’s personal independent of her political views
- “Snoozefest” = Clinton too boring to be president
- Full show devoted to discussing a Clinton selfie with Kim Kardashian
Cable news plays a significant role in shaping perceptions of political culture, what stories are
covered, how they are framed, and who will be allowed to speak about these issues
- Canadiate analysis primarily based on superficial traits
PROTESTS & THE CRISIS OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY
With an event that challenges political norms, journalists may have to question authorities
without concern about their access to political power being cut off
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Example: Bennett, Lawrence & Livingston – Incidents where the above occurred
● Hurricane Katrina (narrative that documented failure by the Bush administration to allow
the earthquake to be a natural and political disaster)
● African American deaths (Trayvon Martin, journalists discussed a long-standing history
with systemic violence against African Americans
● Cable news has to make sense of unfolding crises
Coverage of African Americans / Police Brutality
- Coverage served to engage with failed politics (alleviating inner-city violence/aggressive
police enforcement) and make news outlets reflect on depictions of protests
- News coverage of black political protest has a long history and is subject to stereotypical
roles for protestors
- Critical analysis of police brutality was assisted through diffusion of views
● “Everyone was a journalist”
● Videos can force news media to cover stories that may otherwise go ignored
- Debates about policing practices, institutional racism, and framing actions in news
- Events allowed broadcasters to convery “safer” explanations
● Example: Mother pulling her child out of the streets to remove him from Baltimore
looters, was criticized for not taking responsibility over her child, and if she did,
there would be “less children” on the streets”
● Focused on issues of personal responsibility rather than poverty, unemployment,
mass, incarceration, etc
- Important example is “BLM” vs “All Lives Matter”; the former implies that blacks were
dehumanized, and that all lives, including theirs should matter
Political Protester Coverage
- Protests are covered in different ways, resulting in varying stances being taken by media
- Some portray African American protests in a positive light, others create false narratives
- Protestors sometimes voice their concerns:
● Example: Danielle Williams → Mentioned the protest didn’t really get covered
until a catastrophe occured (burning and looted buildings)
● Shows the limited attention sometimes given to peaceful protests
● Some said there were “no excuse” for the protesting violence… but there was no
excuse for African American killings behind the protests either
● Cable networks made sense of the protests, but real-time TV makes it difficult
Conclusion
- Cable news branding strategies continuously change with the times
- Often reflects a failure to grip their current audience, or a strive to entice more to watch
- Must critically analyze political news with a bipartisan view
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WK 4 ARTICLE: POLITICAL LEARNING THROUGH ENTERTAINMENT –
ONLY AN ILLUSION?
HOW MOTIVATIONS FOR WATCHING TV POLITICAL TALK SHOWS INFLUENCE VIEWERS' EXPERIENCES
Results
- Show that some participants had a strong interest in gaining political information by
following such shows, while others simply watch them for entertainment purposes
- Suggest that people felt better informed and were more entertained through political talk
shows when watching them with a focus on entertaining features rather than with a
focus on information
- Focus on entertaining features can induce a feeling of being informed reveals an
interesting phenomenon
- Video clips do not make a difference
Article
- Political talk shows have been on air in Germany since 1953
- Hart Aber Fair show reached an audience of 3.87 million people in first half of 2010
- Anne Will (ARD) was viewed by 4.22 million people
- Public controversy on how to categorize these shows as shallow entertainment or as
respectable politiical programs
- German shows do not include many humorous or satirical elements as political talk in
the United States
- Discussions range from being information-oriented to entertainment-oriented
- Infotainment – Programs which blur the distinction traditionally made between news, or
informational, and entertaining media content and modes of presentation
● German political talk shows have this
● Research on infotainment has focused on the effects of exposure to political
information presented in an entertaining way, on viewers’ political knowledge,
political engagement, or perceptions of politics
- People who watch television because of its entertaining features are more likely to
watch soft news
- Entertainment-oriented audience was significantly less knowledgable about news topics
“even in the political domains most easily presented as entertainment”
Role of Entertainment in Talk Show Consumption
- Barum (2002) – Viewers who seek entertainment/soft news gain political information as
a by-product
- Vorderer (2001) – Entertainment is an important part of knowledge gain, since
entertained enhances interest
- Fahr (2008) – Viewers more entertained when people they liked contributed to
discussion, entertained by humorous comments, and watched for purpose of information
● Viewers felt most entertained during passages in which protagonists they
favoured contributed to the discussion
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Viewers felt entertained by humorous comments, which loosened up the
discussion and by personal conflicts between different protagonists
Hypothesis 1: People with a focus on entertaining features who watch a political talk show are
more entertained by it than people who watch it with a focus on information
Hypothesis 1b: The induced focus and the presence of a video clip interact, such that people
with a focus on entertaining features watching the political talk show containing a video clip are
more entertained by the show than all other groups
How Do Information & Entertainment Work Together?
1. Political education (awareness of political issues)
2. Political knowledge (factual knowledge about politics)
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People who prefer entertaining television programs are more likely to watch soft news
Shows may enable those people to be more aware of political issues
Does not necessarily lead to actual political knowlege
Barum argues that such knowledge effects might not be the most important result of soft
news; instead, the shows’ influence on attitudes, election behaviour, and newly created
interest in political issues is more important
Meaning that some form of political education might be the more relevant influence of
infotainment shows
Consumption of hard news lead to systematic knowledge gain
Two Routes:
Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) assumes we use pathways to process information:
● Peripheral Route – Defined by a weak motivation or the inability to process information
or arguments effectively
- Cues take on the role of persuasion that is characterized by heuristic processing
- Cues include music, pictures, colors, sympathy with a protagonist, perceived
competence of the person who communicates the message
- More likely to watch a political talk show for entertainment purposes
- Tend to process information heuristically and emotionally
- Do not focus on a show’s informational value
- Should feel informed through even the smallest amount of information offered
● Central Route
Hypothesis 2: People with a focus on entertaining features who watch a political talk
show will think they have learned more from it than will people who watch it with a focus
on information
Hypothesis 2b: The induced focus and presence of a video clip interact such that people
with a focus on entertaining features watching the show containing a video clip think
they have learned more from it than all other groups
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CHAPTER 3: FAKES NEWS AND POLITICAL SATIRE
Introduction – Fake news allows audiences to be more critical about the news
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert “set the scene”
● Satirized and criticized news issues while having similar elements to normal news shows
● Both challenged and participated in the culture of political media
● Provided a “citizen surrogate” (medium for outrage viewers about political culture)
● Comedy Central fake news block → “Antidote to failures of political news”
- Reaches younger audiences who are usually turned off by politics (10 yrs >)
- Sometimes informed people more than regular news (entertainment)
- Put clips on their website, allowing people to cite or catch missed shows
- Median age for The Daily Show was 36, and for The Colbert Report, 33
Why is Everyone Politically Cynical?
● Tyron: Stewart seeks better politics and politicians
● Jones: Attack complicity of media in discourses of power and the powerful
● Almond: Lower actual political activity (protests, parties, voting)
Fake News Characteristics
Intertextuality → Texts constantly refer to, depict, and make use of other texts
● Reference older texts, older versions of the same story, stars who appear across
multiple films, directors
● Viewers may interpet a shows like Grey’s Anatomy or Scandal, made by producer
Shonda Rhimes based on aspects of those two shows
● Provides a means to “work through” raw material of the news to become part of the
larger news narrative being criticized
● Usually uses critical intertextuality (texts that criticize other texts)
Fake News & Political Cynicism
Do fake news shows have an effect on their viewers’ attitudes towards politics?
● Critiques were that fake news increased cynicism
● “Daily Show affect” → Subjects viewed candidates for office more negatively after
watching the show
● Purpose of fake news is to tutor younger audience in the “language” of cynicism
● Jon Stewart – “The Daily Show is nothing if not a nightly criticism of discourses of power
and an attack on the complicity of news media in constructing and circulating such
discourses”
- Shows how news media failed in certain ways and highlight these limitations to
increase transparency around politics
● Fake news shows are economically/ideologically complicit with discourse they criticize
- Shows are dependent on the excess of media they criticize
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-
●
Fake news dissipates energies that could have been put into visible forms of
opposition (e.g., Protests)
People who consume fake news are more likely to participate in activism
Fake News in Network/Multichannel Eras
● Important precedents that defined fake news:
- Work of the guerilla filmmaking collective, Top Value Television (TVTV) →
Created DIY, poorly made videos to mock the political spectacle (focusing less on
the spectacle itself), helped establish some of the conventions of fake news
● Fake news established as a critique of the real news networks
● Michael Moore produced two fake news shows: TV Nation and The Awful Truth
- Covered stories not receiving attention from media
- Focused on issues like income inequality and corporate crime
- Crackers the Corporate Crime Fighting Chicken → Confronted NY major about
tax breaks, talked about a battery factory releasing toxic chemicals in water, etc)
- TV Nation helped us recognize the teaching power of humor, and its ability to
disrupt social/political discourses
● The Daily Show adopted the “parody of the news magazine” format
Real Time with Bill Maher
Bill Maher was hired as a late-night host for ABC, but was let go after making unpopular
remarks following 9/11, that were interpreted incorrectly as an attack on US soldier bravery
● Re-launched show in 2003 with the name Real Time with Bill Maher, on HBO
Features of the RTWBM
● Segments
1. Opening monologue following late-night talk show format
2. Panel of four guests discussing week’s stories with comedy
3. “New Rules” where Maher engages in political rant, offering unofficial “rules” for
political discourse
● Panel is central feature of the show
- Sought individuals from diverse political and popular culture
- Use of “common sense vernacular” to make sense of wider political culture
- Maher starts the discussion with one political view, then more are added to
complicate the argument (e.g., Climate change – Maher stated it was backed by
science, but Bernie Sanders and other panelists argued)
● Attentive to harmful effects of certain forms of political discourse (w/ younger audiences)
● 2014 Congressional Elections → “Flip a district”, where fans nominated representative to
be targeted by a weekly negative campaign on the show (eventual target being John
Kline, because of his position on education and the workforce)
● Targeted candidates that are dangerous/powerful
- Those that are harmful to the “dysfunctional” political system
- Shows how the political system can work against interest in voters
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Pointing out the Artifice: The Daily Show with John Stewart
● Illustrated how political media would examine political institions to ensure they would
better serve public needs
● “Helping the viewers detect the bullshit”
● Used parody to teach and provide audiences with strategies to critically analyze news
● Became increasingly dedicated to politics in the 2000 election
- “Indecision 2000 coverage” (winner wasn’t declared until weeks later)
Features of The Daily Show
● Hybrid format between nightly newscasts and late-night talk shows
● Relies heavily on intertextuality to understand humour (serious fans recognize better)
● “Chaos on Bullshit Mountain” → Highlighted ways that Fox News created false narrative
about national politics
● “Mess O’Potamia” → Satire on the Bush admin’s promotion of Iraq/Afghanistan wars
● Used inflated titles (e.g., Senior black correspondent)
● Discusses Republican news portrayal on Fox News
● First “BS Mountain” was Fox New’s attempts at damage control about the Mitt Romney
video where he says 47% of US population is dependent on the government
- Outlines strategies Fox used to control response (1. Dismissing video, 2.
Reinterpret Romney’s comments, 3. Defended “47%), using montages
Outrage Towards CNN
● Singled out CNN more than any other news network
● CNN “blew dramatic stories out of proportion, while ignoring more pertinent concerns”
● Mocked CNN’s non-stop coverage of disappearance of flight 370
- Demonstrated how ratings influence CNN’s decision about what stories to cover
- Created dramatic visuals to attack the news network
The Daily Show Interviews: Deliberation, Accountability, Critique
● Interviewed both celebrities and journalists/politicans
● Extended interviews were posted to website (allowed viewers to engage online)
● Considered the transparent part of the show
- Baym – Stewart uses his interviews to “enact a more deliberative model of
political exchange”
● Confronted democrats for failing in their responsibilities
Examples of Interviews
- 2008 w/ CNBC host Jim Cramer → Institutional critique, wanted to hold Cramer
accountable for his risky investment recommendations
- 2015 w/ NYT journalist Judith Miller → Blames her for enabling a foreign policy mistake
by publishing articles that helped the Bush administration make a case to justify the Iran
war, acknowledged institutional failure
- Secretary of Health Kathleen Senelius → Website glitches making signing up for
Obamacare difficult
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The Colbert Report
● Uses fake news to offer institutional critique of the abuses of political power
● Consisted of two segments: Commentary on headlines followed by an interview
● Uses character to satirize political media, for a teaching purpose
“The Word”
● Host did commentary on a specific topic, built around a word or phrase
● Counter-opinion to claims (that were popular/connected to emotions rather than truth)
● 2006 Wikiality → Mashup of Wikipedia and reality (If enough people support the idea,
even if it is untrue, it can become true)
Colbert Super Pac
● Informed audiences about political issues (conservative character)
● Episodes on campaign financing, talking about how the Citizens United vs. FEC allowed
for extensive donations to political campaigns
● Talked about political action committees (PACs) and super PACs, and how a lack of
regulations can poison the political process through untamed election spending
● Created his own super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow (ABTT).
● Trevor Potter talked about the creation of his own PAC, and shows how easy it is
● Created a shell corporation to funnel money into his PAC (illustrates the challenges
voters may have when confronted by manipulative political ads produced by groups with
no connection to candidate)
● Colbert states he will run for “POTUS of South Carolina”, and Jon Stewart runs his Super
PAC, ran a negative ad against the frontrunner
● Began the series with Potter to understand how campaign finance worked, BUT started
discovering so much was allowed under political fundraising rules (raised over $1M)
The Colbert Bump: Satirizing Public Affairs Interviews
● Example: The Warren Interview (Elizabeth Warren)
● Colbert can disagree with someone while still promoting their political philosophy
● Colbert Bump → Positive attention a guest receives from appearing on his show
● Although Colbert disagreed with Warren on many topics, he asks questions to allow her
to respond so she could articulate her message and policies
● Used his ignorant personality to promote scientific literacy
● Cosmos host Neil ddeGrasse Tyson → Combative relationship, where he creates an
oppositional tone to allow Tyson to explain the scientific perspective
The Beaverton (2016)
- Onion network
- Anchored-new shoe
- Field reporters – More like the Daily Show
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John Oliver: Humour as Political Activism
● Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s successful shows proved that there was a niche for
fake news and political humour
● HBO hired John Oliver
Features of the Show
● Weekly comedic investigate report on an important issue, along with extensive research
● His “britishness” allowed him to talk about American identity stereotypes
● Talked about American minority voting rights in U.S. territories
● Last Week Tonight (Oliver) → In-depth analysis of US political issues
- Airs once a week
- HBO was premium cable channel, so segments could be long and uninterrupted
- Less dependent on ad revenue, so he did not worry about offending sponsors
- Talked about the issues of corporate personhood and unlimited political spending
● Example: One monologue addressed absurdity of extending rights of speech and
religion to corporations
- Joked about “religions” of chain restaurants, mocking their branding using
stereotypes
- Deconstructs complaint about using tax dollars for something they oppose
- Portrays anti-tax expressions as logical and one that undermines national unity
Impact of Social Media
● Monologues circulated far beyond original TV broadcast
● Mobilized to support wide range of political causes/arguments
● Some of these went viral, causing significant outcomes (Example: Oliver called viewers
to go to FCC comments page to leave negative comments, and the website crashed)
The Nightly Show
● Arose from the need to replace Stephen Colbert, signed Larry Wilmore (senior black
correspondent from The Daily Show, only African American to host)
● Panel TV equivalent of a “barbershop” where no topics are off-limits)
● Serves as a significant teaching show
Features of The Nightly Show
● Began with 7-minute monologue on a specific issue
● Following this, has a conversation about this topic with 3-4 politicans
- Focused on attaining guests that would contribute to the “conversational vibe”
rather than the aesthetic of the show
● Final segment was supposed to be “Keep it 100”
- Guests asked a provocative question and they must answer honestly
- Ended up posting most of these segments online to entice viewers to visit
website
● Returned to more classic structure = Monologues (2 segments) and one 7-minute panel
21
-
On one occasion, skipped the monologue to spend time covering state of black
fatherhood with a panel
Example Episode:
● Dealt with mass murder of nine African Americans at a Church in SC
● Showed a clip montage, then introduced news of the shooting and an interview
● Theme: Critique of Fox of pushing argument that shooter’s motivation were ‘unclear’
- Presents clips from Fox in which anchors present the motives as unclear
- Interprets this as a means of creating uncertainty over responsibility of the
shooting, to promote a “more comfortable narrative” about the race
● Reminds audience of history of black violence at places of worship
● Gives important textual information about the shooting
● Panel discussed the reasons that prevented Fox from acknowledging that Roof was
motivated by race (importance of language around hate crimes was emphasized)
● Because of HBO, was able to devote much more time to this discussion
WK 5 ARTICLE: SPEAKING “TRUTH” TO POWER? RICK MERCER
REPORT
Goal → Explore the cultural geography of political satire and why we have national/regional
identities, through analyzing the Rick Mercer Report and Talking to Americans
Introduction
Rick Mercer epitomizes Geoffrey Baym’s conceptualization of the “discursive intregration” that is
characteristic of other fake news satires, wherein the boundaries between the “discourses of
news, politics, entertainment, and marketing have grown deeply inseparable”
● In 2003, there was a revelation that Canada has an increasingly fractious relationship
with the United States because of Rick Mercer
- “Being attached to America these days is like being in a pen with a wounded bull.
Between the pot smoking and the gay marriage, it’s a wonder there is not a giant
deck of cards out there with all of our faces on it.”
● Influenced the need for an explanation of the breach between Canada/US in issues of
sexuality, multiculturalism, militarism, drug use, and social welfare policies
● “News” to Americans can be a joke to Canadians, emanating from disproportionate
power relations with US
Satire and Nation-Building in Canada
● SATIRE:
- Tactic of resistance for those not in power
- Successful if the audience is able to “get the joke”
- Speaks to issues of social cohesion/division rooted within community
experiences Development of Satire in Canada
● Canada is the story of contending forces…
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●
●
England/America, Canadian nationalist/NA continentalist, French and English,
liberal and conservative, etc
Satire in Canada uses negative sense of identity → Defining yourself by what you aren’t
- Resistance to the “other” (generally, the US)
Why is Canadian satire popular?
- Proximity (geographically and culturally) to the US
- Regions have different cultures (Example: NF is ridiculed the most, because of
underpopulation, isolation and poverty)
This Hour has 22 Minutes (1993)
● Weekly fake news comedy set in the Maritimes
● Used fictional news sources, interviews, dubbed with editorial documentary
● Went “into the field” and interviewed real politicians
● Cast was known as Canada’s “unofficial opposition”
● US knew very little about world politics or other cultures, including Canada
- Example: Covered President Clinton’s re-election and asked Washington
insiders’ questions while changing the name of our prime minister, none
corrected him
Talking to Americans → Washington segments from THH22M
● Idea that people who “should know” actually did not
● 1-hour special is one of the highest-rated programs on CBC television
● Mercer asked Berkeley students what they thought of having a black prime minister in
Canada, and none corrected to say he was white
● For Canadians, this mocking provided intellectual and cultural superiority
● Average Canadian knowledge is more knowledgable than “priviledged” Americans
●
Does satire have any greater impact than just uniting a community?
- Allows for an audience to have resistance, giving them the “upper hand” in their
relationship with the US
- Alleviates the desire for actual rebellion
- Deflects criticism from Canadian politicians (largely to blame for
economic/political relationship between Canada and the US)
●
Mercer’s American Road Trip (2000 Election) – Got attention of American press
- Spoke with democratic candidate Al Gore → His responses to Canadian issues
proved the insignificance of Canadian Politics to America
- Spoke with republican candidate Bush → Wasn’t able to correctly identify the
name of the Canadian Prime Minister
●
●
●
Labelled satire as “the discrepancy between what is and what ought to be”
Satire may not lead to transformative changes, but can enter deep into public dialogue
Mercer responded to the events of 9/11 offering Canada’s assistance, which finally
introduced some commonality between them
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Rick Mercer Report (One-man show, not an ensemble cast)
● Did not revive Talking to Americans, but travelled across Canada participating in cultural
regional events
● Exploration of interregional bonds of Canadian community (not negative like Talking to
Americans)
● Differences between Canada and US were talked about on Nightly on the News
● Reported on attacking corruption of US adminstration
● Episode Format:
- Introduction of major stories of the day
- “Front Page”, Mercer applies fictional backstories to news photos of politicans
- “Rant”, Mercer walks in downtown Toronto and vents about integrity of
American’s larger global policies
- Political interview that took place in neutral space where he and politicians
chatted (went shopping, fishing, etc)
● Canada and US relationships was a dominant theme within each episode
● Many critiques that Mercer stopped being satirical with the RMR
- Mercer mixes in both casual and grilling dialogue
- Interview and news segments
- Speaks to the implications of satire in society (assume satire must be overly
confrontational to achieve goal… but Mercer does not need this)
● Mercer stopped defining himself and Canadians as “not being American” and focused
more on Canadian values and culture
● Mentions that geography is a reason why Canada has many of its problems
Conclusion
● Talking to Americans → Emphasizes insecurity of Canadian identity (compared to US)
● Rick Mercer Report → Shows the challenges of the maturation of Canada’s sense of self
-
Nature of satire depends on power levels, events, and issues between the two countries
Satire provides the opportunity for not only critique, but self-reflection
LECTURE: Not Necessarily New Fake News?
● 1972: Top Value Television = Political spectacle of Republican & Democratic conventions
● 1983-90: Not necessarily the news = dubbing over news footage
● 1944: TV Nation & Awful Truth
- Magazine style comedic news shows
- Comedians as reporters
- Crackers the Corporate Crime (fighting chicken = character-driven story)
- Tryon: Humour = Pedagogical
- Jones: ‘News” = Investigate + ‘fake’ = Satire
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CHAPTER 4: COMEDY AND THE POLITICAL SPECTACLE
Introduction
- Scripted comedy shows combine narrative techniques and intertextuality to comment on
political culture
● Less associated with overt forms of activism
● Useful in contributing to conversation (provide us with information, entertainment,
and deliberation)
- Can use more complex storylines to depict political issues
● Show politicians, reporters, and citizens engaging with political system
locally/nationally
- Has more flexibility than fake news or channel news
- Highlights the issue the issue of distribution timing → Scripted shows can take much
more time than sketch comedy shows, and can appear live to “keep up”
● Can run new episodes during election season (attract attention from news)
● Serialized sitcomes are written weeks or months in advance, but can make
broader observations about political culture
Saturday Night Live (SNL)
- Uses comedy to comment on current political events
- Generally performed live → Highly flexible in commenting on recent stories
- SNL had greater visibility because
● Culturally central
● Prominent place on NBC’s broadcast schedule
- Since it is branded, they may be more reluctant to take strong partisan stances
- Offers little substantive critique for political discourse but uses homour to exaggerate
personality traits of public figures
- Opportunity to make performer a “star”
- Defines the images of major political figures
● Chevy Chase played President Gerald Ford as a klutz (even though he was a
star athlete), after he tripped/fell down the steps of Air Force One
How Does SNL Comment on Politics
- SNL comments on political issues using two techniques
1. Comments on current events through impersonations and re-enactments
2. Comments directly on news media through “Weekend Update” (cast members
play role of news anchors with a comedic take on previous week’s events)
- Allow cast members to develop characters that increase their profile or that could be
spun-off in future films/TV
- Retains a significant audience for “live” shows
- Sketch comedy genre is easy to share on social media in form of clips, allows them to
remain relevant in technological times
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Political Sketches
- Sketches very commonly used in SNL
- Example: 1988, parody of Bush and Dukakis debate
● Bush → Played to be inarticulate, saying very little besides his “catchphrases”
● Was used not as a critique for Bush but to show the implications for voters
supporting someone who gives no reason for his presidential qualification
- “Cold Open” → Precedes opening credits
- Sketches reflect on issues connected to politics of representation (race and gender)
● Example: Casted Fred Arminsen (German, Japanese, Venezuelan descent) as
Obama… seen as a form of blackface
● Was defended that he had “won the part” after competing against black people,
but critics viewed choice as inappropriate/politically incorrect
- SNL sketches are important to help us define what counts as news
Issues with Casting Diversity
- Demographics of cast were too narrow… a more narrow diverse cast would “allow the
impersonation of a broader range of public figures”
- Example: 2013 Kerry Washington guest hosted the show:
● Talked about SNL’s lack of diversity
● Played Michelle Obama… normally she did not appear because there was no
one to play her in the skits
● Voice-over apologizes for the “number of black women Kerry Washington must
play” → Comes as Oprah, then Beyonce
The Fey Effect
- Set during the 2008 presidential election
- SNL shaped the political perception of Sarah Palin (VP candidate) played by Tina Fey
- Fey as Palin:
● Had an uncanny resemblance
● Captured her accent and mannerisms
● Often directly repeated her public statements
● Showed that Palin was being taken seriously when she was clearly unprepared
for office, was a political lightweight
● Demonstrated the Republican party’s efforts to appeal to female voters
- In one sketch, Fey and Hillary Clinton took the stage together
● Denounced the place of sexism in media
● Examples:
- Fey said, during a foreign policy discussion “I can see Russia from my
house” implicating she understood foreign policy because she had a
shared border
- Clinton discussed disappointment for losing election while Palin “pretends
it’s a beauty pageant”
- Implications of Fey’s Impersonations:
● Shaped expectations for Palin’s media appearances
26
●
-
Palin could not answer a standard economic policy questions… parodied the
interview with Fey who used a “lifeline” when she did not know the answer
● Palin had to appear on SNL herself to do “damage control” → Generated largest
audience, Palin plays along with the jokes about her
● Did not really repair her damaged image
Shows how the impersonations did not only affect Palin, but wider political conversation
around the 2008 election
SNL News Parody
- Parodied media, discussing how partisan media uses narratives to support their beliefs
- Example: Sketch parodies the show Fox & Friends
● Show says Obamacare would not reach its goals using a misleading graph
● SNL showed that Obamacare did meet its goals
● Interviewed an American who could not keep her doctor, but he actually had a
restraining order against her
● Mistakes that the hosts of Fox & Friends made that can impact viewers’ opinions
- SNL’s satire is relatively bipartisan
- Criticized the excess on MSNBC’s liberal political branding
- Example: 2012 after first Obama/Romney debate:
● Obama widely perceived to have lost badly, SNL mocks MSNBC’s desperate
post debate analysis (desperate for finding reasons as to why Obama did bad)
● Obama could have had “altitude poisoning” since the debate was on a mountain
● Highlights limitations in media to offer rational, thoughtful analyses of political
culture
Sketch Comedy in the On-Demand Era
Key & Peele
- Presidential impersonations with the help of a character to be Obama’s “anger translator”
● “Obama” spoke calmly, and the anger translator gave unfiltered interpretation
● Allowed for the confrontation of hostile accusations against Obama
- Used a promotional video “Meet Luther” (character who played the anger translator)
● Prepared audiences on what to expect from the show
● Jonathan Gray – Promotional videos activate “the process of creating textual
meaning, serving as the first outpost of interpretation”
● Luther helped to mock stereotypical assumptions about Obama and allow
viewers to push back against hostility towards Obama
- Obama performed a sketch with Luther
- Passed along the “anger translator” to Clinton, and the two anger translators face off
while Obama and Clinton speak
Inside Amy Schumer
- Used sketch comedy for satirical purposes
- Addressed gender inequality and harmful beauty standards
- Example: Ask if Birth Control is Right for You
27
●
-
Voice-over tells Schumer to first ask her doctor, then her boss, her priest (all
male), the list goes on until she is exhausted… until voice-over says “finally, ask
yourself why you insist on having sex for fun”, then a young boy asks for a gun
and it is tossed to him saying “that’s your right!”
● Legal and institutional barriers women face when obtaining birth control
Sketch format is flexible to engage in timely commentary about important political issues
Political and Situation Comedy
Situation comedy → Crafted narratives that engage with questions about a wider political culture
● Often uses genre as a device for commenting political issues (parks and recreation =
workplace comedy)
Tanner ‘88
- Mockumentary focusing on efforts of liberal Democratic representative Jack Tanner to
secure 1988 presidential nomination
- Mix of scripted comedy and documentary
● Hybrid genre created (actors/scenes blended with actual politicians/public
figures)
- “Guerilla satire” approach → Filmed on-location while the 1988 campaign happened
- Made realistic through improv style and cameros by presidential candidates
- John Corry – Tanner 88’ shows that “Presidential campaign is performance art”
- Critical lens that attacked the political spectacle
● Mocked campaigns and news media that cover them
Example: First Episode
- Focuses on the control room for a news show called “Close Up” which covers the New
Hampshire primary
● Shows state’s significant role in defining the political process
● Interview with Jack Tanner (Tanner says he is from 8 different states → He is an
“Air Force Dependent”, associated with the military)
- Shows backroom activities at a hotel (campaign staffers working on biographical film for
Tanner → Goal is to make him relatable and uniquely equipped for presidency
● Features montage of ringing phones, mocking tropes of promotional media
Important Content
- Focuses on early primary campaigns, exposes “retail politics”
● Voters Tanner visits are more focused on meeting a famous person, rather than
learning about their candidate’s positions
● Example: Voters take a picture with Tanner, refuse a pin to support him, then
mess up the name of the other candidate they say they are voting for
- Series aims to present Jack as the “authentic candidate” who challenges the
conventions of political campaigns
● Argued for the legalization of marijuana, very controversial stance at the time
● Says “any law that makes 25 million Americans criminals is a loser”
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Parks and Recreation
- Depiction of office of government in Pawnee, Indiana, parks and recreation department
- Basic thesis → “Government is a positive force that provides necessary, basic services”
● Shown through actions of Leslie Knope, and Benn Wyatt who supports her
- Uses a mockumentary style similar to The Office
- Storylines develop over multiple episodes, but some wrapped up in one episode
- Balancing act between Knope’s liberal efforts and Ron Swanson’s libertarian opposition
● Value of local government vs. self-sufficiency
● Depicts their relationship not as adversaries but as one of mutual
respect/admiration
- Examples of Satirization of Issues
● Done in a creative and engaging way
● Episode handles policies around gay marriage with penguins at the zoo
● Tries to pass the legislation on 2-5-liter sodas, which raises questions about the
government limiting consumption of sugary sodas to benefit health
Overall Goals of the Show
- Shows through humour how absurd certain national policies are
- Demonstrates how fulfilling public service work can be
- Shows their beliefs in the power of the government to benefit people’s lives
Veep (Show) – Cynical perspective
- Used comedy to show political leaders/staff as incompetent and self-absorbed
- Mocked the political spectacle that shows idealized images of politics
- Main character is Selena Meyer (VP, then president of US)
● Shows genuine disinterest to her people
● Shows she has shallow plans that are trivial compared to important issues
● Example: Most important bill as VP is to turn plastic cutlery into cornstarch
- Shows how political staff are interwined in the political spectacle
● Example: Lots of energy devoted to tracking “who has power”
- Examples of cynicism towards politics:
● Selena caught napping in the Senate before voting on a crucial bill, wakes up,
and says “democracy is fantastic, but fucking dull”
VEEPS VS. PARKS & RECREATION
VEEP
-
PARKS & RECREATION
Disinterest in the citizens who vote
for them
Will do anything to remain in power
because they profit from being in a
political campaign
Staff is cyncial and manipulative
-
Genuinely values deliberative
democracy and what the people have
to say
Believe in the value of government
services
Staff is generally open and honest with
each other regarding problems
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Important Show Content
- Shows Veep’s engagement with the political spectacle
- Demonstrate how candidates’ images are more concerning than their policies
● Example: She runs against some pretty sketchy people
- Addresses challenges women face when running for political office
● Example: Selina pressured to take a stance on abortion during her campaign,
which she clearly does not want to do
● Shows her initial refusal to solidify her identity as a woman in a political position
- Shows how sometimes, what we say in front of political cameras is not what you mean
● Example: Abortion example → Gets on camera and counteracts her own beliefs
- Addresses the importance of being the first female political leader (high expectations)
Alpha House
- Satirizes behaviour of elected officials (similar to Veep)
- Produced by Amazon → Tttempt to compete with Netflix and have more original content)
About the Show
- 30-minute comedy show
- Focuses on a group of Republican senators that share a house on Capitol Hill
● Based on a previous house owned by Democratic senators
- Characters:
● Gil John Biggs → Former university basketball coach, now politician
● Robret Bettencourt → Black republican
● Louis Laffer Jr. → Nevada senator portrayed as a closeted gay man
● Andy Guzman → Latino sex addict who has presential ambitioms
- Characters show lack of awareness of political issues
● Louis → Does not know how the political process works, mishandles a gay rights
situation
● Gil John → Made verbal remarks which were recorded and cannot justify them
● Andy → Unprepared her office as he poorly performs in national appearances
- Characters “bend over backwards” to gain support (in donations)
● Showing how there is a huge influence of money in politics
● Modeled after the Koch brothers
CONCLUSIONS
● All shows work to map aspects of Washington’s political culture
● Role of campaign in upholding the political spectacle and how it has changed over time
● Attempt to make sense of the political process that seems to be failing the public
● Some staff have good intentions, but confronted with a toxic political culture
-
Tanner 88’ → Increasing awareness of the role of politicians more interested in creating
an image rather than governing
Veep & Alpha House → Show how individual are unable to “step outside” of the
spectacle
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Parks & Recreation → Romanticized image of government, but politicians still held up
for scrutiny
LECTURE VIDEOS – Political Sketch Comedy
● ‘Timely political commentary’ = Currency, importance, narrative
● Critque:
- Always: Political culture, institutions, and politicians
- Add: Media and social media
● Caricature and exaggeration
● Intertextuality
SNL (Saturday Night Live)
● Weekly = Currency → Satirize political and social issues
● Key: Current issues and public figures satirized
● Comedians:
- Career = Political caricatures
- Events = Exaggerated situations
- ‘Cold Open’: Political = Draw-in viewers
- Not journalistic or factual limitations
● Mirror on current political issues
- Diversity issues
- Treatment of women
- Self-reflexive?
● Impact: Fey as Palin
- Resemblance, accent, mannerisms
- Unprepared, uninformed, dangerous
- Image, not qualification
● ‘Critique cynical political culture’
● Replaced ‘Sarah Palin’
● Impact: Fey as Palin → Palin comes to SNL
● Appearance = Humility
● Weekend Update
- Concentrated political commentary
- Fake news cast started in 1975
● Chevy Chase = 1st anchor
● Dennis Miller: Scribble at the end → Stewart
● Kevin Nealon: Mr. Subliminal → Colbert’s “The Word”
- Bipartisan BUT main critique is current President and dominant party
● Impact of Politics?
- Fake news
- Politican-as-Celebrity
- Cynicism about Politics and Politicians
● Washington political culture
- Replicate stereotypes, prejudices, divisions, etc
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Key & Peele
● Broad social, political, cultural critique
● Race issues central, but also gender issues, global politics, policing, bullying, drug trade
● Skits to make political analysis and arguments (Black ice, ‘we have oil’)
● Sub-text: Luther the Anger Interpreter → True political views of Obama
Inside Amy Schumer
● Broad social, political, cultural critique
● Gender inequities and inequalities, media & gender
● Skits, ‘women-on-the-street’ & sit-down interviews, stand-up routine
● Sub-text: Agency vs. control over women’s lives → Politics: Abortion, jobs, #MeToo
LECTURE – Political Satire: Situation Comedies
- Political Sitcom – Serialized comedy
- Same: Political culture through lens of parody, satire, exaggeration
- Different: Long narratives (season, multi-episodic), archetype characters (real people
fictionalized)
British Political Sitcoms
- Yes, Minister (original?)
- Yes, Prime Minister
- Thick of it
Canadian Political Sitcoms
- Not My Department
- Best Laid Plans
American Political Sitcoms – TWO TYPES
1. Mockumentaries – Tanner ‘88, Veep, Parks & Recreation
● Comment on a particular aspect of politics
- Tanner ‘88
● Political consultants
- Parks & Recreation
● Network: Limits
● Bureaucracy, municipal government
● Democracy: ‘Public service’, local response to current and global
issues, ‘deliberative democracy’, redemption
- Veep: Candidate + staff
● Cable: Language, situation, etc. = extremes
● Executive, Legislative
● Democracy: Manipulated, cynical, managed by elites, ‘retail
politics’
● ‘Guerille Satire’ = Mix with on-going political events, sometimes in real-time
- Used in fake news and documentaries
● Political cameros – Useful for politicans
● Intertextuality: Current issues → Critically engaged
● ‘Inside Look’ = Secrets, realities, private conversations, backroom dealings
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●
‘Political Spectacle’ = Contrived, set up, ‘public’/PR, manipulative → Cynical,
critical
2. TV Shows – Benson, SpinCity, Dan for Mayor, The Mayor
Political Sitcoms
- Satirize and parody political spectacle, values, institions
- Processes: Electioneering, passing legislation, political fundraising
- Instituions: Congress, White House, Mayor’s Office
- Central bungling authority: President, VP, Mayor, Governor
TV Show – Difference from Mockmentary?
- Not much: Parody, satire, exaggeration
- Not documentary style
- Not ‘insider’ or ‘guerilla’ satire
- Less ‘ad lib’
- Significant location or context change less likely (studio productions)
- Less intertextuality = Context broadly
- Characters = Archetypes, but have greater depth or show may focus on their storyline
- Process and events
- Failure of politics and politicans
- Intentions: Personal interest > Public interest
- Focus: Extended critique > Most current issue
CHAPTER 5: POLITICAL PROCESS MELODRAMAS & SERIAL
NARRATIVE
Melodrama has played a vital role in shaping perceptions of Washington’s political culture
Two Major Categoies
1. Melodramas of Political Process → Depict characters navigate and manage the
legislative process (election campaigns, etc)
● Discusses questions of morality, or “moral legibility” of competing value and
beliefs through a narrative
● Make sense of how political process works
● Specifically, one that is dominated by corruption/focus on political spectacle,
rather than governing needs
2. Melodramas of National Security
The West Wing – One of the most influential political dramas in history
- Goal → Reverse idea of cynicism in US political life through explaining conflict that
emerge within the political system aiming to serve those they represent
- Major Storyline → Focuses on White House’s senior staff
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-
Motivated by genuine desire to contribute to public good
● Significant disagreement about what “good” is between staff
Provides a “backstage” perspective
● Provide context for complex news stories/procedures
● Donnalyn Pompper – The West Wing provides “simple explanations for complex
issues so that audiences may understand policies”
Both one-episode and multi-episode storylines
The West Wing as a Weekly Civics Lesson
- Discussed a wide range of topics, most importantly the role of news media in informing
the public about political affairs
- Empahsis on the importance of “vibrant” political media
● Ep. 1.21 → Issue of how political campagins are financed (worked to close a deal
to only be allowed to donate to a party (NOT a candidate themselves), which
created the slogan “money isn’t speech, still used today by reform advocates”
● Ep. 2.3 → POTUS meets with a broadcaster and calls her out for condemning
homosexuality, using many bible verses to back his points
● Tackle the role of media industries (broadcast networks) in shaping political
culture, and how political TV must still serve the public interest
● Debate regarding how much airtime to devote to each candidate
“20 Hours in America”
- Two-Part Episode → Portrays the lack of awareness of rural Americans and other
important issues, while critiquing the cutting of social programs that support the
middle-class
● Example: Characters, while travelling back to Washington, encounter a biodiesel
truck, Indiana’s lack of observation of daylight savings time, a diner that doesn’t
have a “local delicacy” or CNN
- Discusses concerns about rising college education costs, lack of public school finding,
and injury concern in the workplace
- Episode depicted ‘True Americans” as white, economically struggling, and headed by
males
Hope and Change on The West Wing
- Many storylines challenges cynical perceptions about elections
● Close race between two likeable candidates (Santos & Vinick) → Critiques the
Bush & Kerry election, where abortion and gay marriage overshadowed issues
like the economy and terrorism
- Placed emphasis on candidates’ mutual respect
● Vinick & Santos were reluctant to use negative ads
● “The Debate” → Appeared more realistic (real CBS news anchor), loosely
scripted so they could improvise, and altered the traditional format of debates
(where there were limits to answers) → created a more effective debate
● Both candidates believe the other has the country’s best interests at heart
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Scandal
- Personal ambition outweighs the idealized aspects of Washington culture
- Negative connection to melodrama… considered “soapy” by critics
- Search for “moral legibility” or “good” in a corrupt political system
- Emphasis on emotion/style in excess → Help to make moral/ethical questions obvious
- Illustrates the cost in preserving an illusion of national innocence
Olivia Pope (Main character, labelled as a “fixer”)
- Deals with problems in the workplace while struggling to manage her personal life
- Needs to ensure scandals do not go public
- Pope worked with Fitzgerald Grant on his presidential campaign
● Relationship is a portrayal of an African American woman lovesick over a
powerful white man
● Highlighted the complicity of people working for them to tamper with the
campaign
- Focuses primarily on Pope’s relationship with wealthy clients and her father
● Father runs a secret government organization
● Her dad tells her that she would have to be “twice as good as them to get half of
what they have”, referring to powerful clients
- Shows corrupt systems reinforcing the interest of wealthy/powerful people… while giving
the illusion of democratic control
“The Lawn Chair”
- Episode addresses questions about police violence against African Americans
- Coincidental timing with a police systemic abuse incident
●
OVERVIEW
-
-
Olivia is handing a case where a 17-yr African American teen was shot by police (officer
said they were “within their rights” to shoot because the boy had a knife). Pope worries
the situation could escalate, and it does when the father refuses to leave the crime scene
and protests begin. Olivia’s credibility is questioned as to whether or not she had African
Americans’ bests interest in mind. They find evidence that the shoot did not occur “within
the officer’s rights”, and Olivia begs for an investigation, which does occur.
Episode received both praise and criticism for its take on police violence
House of Cards
- Similar to Scandal (explores relationships among “power-hungry” politicians in
Washington)
- Very cynical; offers “little hope that a truly democratic political world can be restored”
- Politicians on HOC either:
1. Cynically manipulate the system for personal gain, OR
2. Are essentially powerless with good intentions to advocate for justice and
transparency
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Frank Underwood
- Main character → Pursues power to no end after not getting the secretary of state
position
- Manipulates his way from 1) House of Representatives, to 2) VP, to 3) White House
- His relationship with Zoe Barnes
● She is a journalist who worked with Frank while he manipulated his way to VP
● Becomes a threat to Frank’s goals after knowing corruptive information, so Frank
pushes her into an oncoming train
- While in the presidency
● Facing the challenge of being re-elected
● A major bill falls through, so he manipulates the system to create value in the bill
- Whole show demonstrates Frank’s paternalisitc attitude to the public
Melodrama and Female Political Leaders
- Some shows focused on how female political leaders negotiate the political process
Commander in Chief → ABC series, where Mackenzie Allen assumes US presidency
- Set a few years after 9/11
- Focuses on Allen’s capacity to direct the primarily masculine military
- She is depicted as an outside, who “may not be prepared to lead the country and
navigate the masculine world of politics”
- Allen is able to consolidate power with honesty and a military focus
Political Animals → Responded to the experiences of Hillary Clinton
- Appealed to a largely female audience due to show’s depiction of powerful women
- Southern governor loses a close battle to a male candidate (similar to Clinton/Obama)
- Examines the personal toll of a life in politics (especially for women)
- How political media played a role in shaping perceptions of powerful women
● Example: Political candidate talks about how well the public “knows her”, but she
still is unpopular
● Parallels that Clinton lost because she was less “likeable” than Obama (an
assumption filled with stereotypes)
- Show allows one to sympathize with the female leader
Game Change (Movie) → Depicted Sarah Palin’s unsuccessful run for VP during 2008 election
- Mixture of scripted drama and old footage to create storyline of the political spectacle
● Footage used to see back-then media depictions of Palin
- Covered a singular event, called “event status programming”
● 10-week campaign into 2 hour narrative
- One of the most transparent analyses of the 2008 election, helped “make sense” of it
- Conclude that Palin is not an ideal candidate due to her lack of political knowledge
● Emphasizes her role as a “hockey mom”
● Showed her become a “puppet” as she memorizes answers for
debates/interviews
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Her “authenticity was destroyed by a campaign’s desperate attempts to make a narrative
about her”
● Shows the downfalls of building a campaign for someone who isn’t ready
Local Politics and The Good Wife
- Focuses on the concerns associated with women in politics
● Cynical depiction of current American politics
- Main narrative → Alicia Florrick (wife of Chicago attorney) finds out her husband cheats
and leaves him, starts a career as lawyer, story discusses her growing prominence in her
career and the implications on her personal life
● Parenting her children while making choices about her husband
- Address the relationship between technology in the law
● Deals with a case of a 3D printed gun firing and killing an innconent person,
complex case because there were so many factors in why the gun misfired
- Address complex legal and moral issues at stake in court
● Gay couple sued a bakery because they would not make a cake for their wedding
- Addresses challenges of female politicans
- Episode: “The Debate” → Shows how political debates tend to result in responses that
have less details, and that these can have implications (e.g., protests)
- Alicia eventually steps down from running for office:
● Shows how, despite good intentions, she was confronted by larger powers
- Highlights the complexities of American political culture (locally/nationally)
CONCLUSION
Political process melodramas allow audiences to ask complex moral questions about role of
government in everyday life
●
●
●
●
The West Wing → Created an idealized narrative less focused on money, more on
politicans
Scandal → Pope’s work didn’t preserve democracy but the illusion of it (really a corrupt
system)
House of Cards → Implies that a corrupt political official could work around the will of
the people, while ignoring real sources of power (Example: Campaign financing)
The Good Wife → Shows that running for office involves scrutiny
(personally/professionally), leading to difficult moral choices
Lecture – Political Dramas
- Serialized narrative
- Shape perceptions of political culture
● What values are important?
● How do things get done?
● What dilemmas are faced?
● How might real world issues play out (differently?)
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Two Types
1. Political process
2. Issues of national secuite
3. Not exclusive
Key Difference?
- Moral legibility: Values & beliefs
● Characters struggle
● Shades of gray
● Can we identify with their struggle?
- On trial: Political culture
● System: Corrupt > Enemy of the good
● Culture: Self-interested > Wrong values
● Leader: Saviour, protector, redeemer
- Thematic Division:
● Viewer values and beliefs?
● Writer’s/producer/network views?
1. Romantic & idealized
2. Cynical & manipulative
West Wing
- First serialized political drama
● Older: The Bold Ones (1970-71)
- Focus on Executive (president, etc) branch of government
- ‘Pull the curtain back’ → White House
- ‘Space of Innocence’ → Try to do good but have to overcome challenges
- Politics = Decision-making + negotiating laws and polcies BUT on 2 tracks
1. Single Episode = Daily and immediate problems
2. Multiple Episodes = Legislation, process, etc
- Complexity of political institutions’ agents:
● White House → President + Senior Staff
● Congress
● Media
● Lobbyists & interest groups
● The Party
● Voters
- Media (before social media)
● Threats? = Manage
● Narrative to public? = Spin, manipulate
● Political information source? = Public interest
● Important for democracy? = Regular press briefings and interviews
- Ideal: Interventionist, ‘big government’, effective, America’s ‘true’ values
● Counter to 80’s Reaganomics & conservatism
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Counter ‘mainstream American’: Rural and small town, industrial & agricultural,
traditional Christian, high-school educated, lower/middle-class, white
● Social Contract: Government cares for citizens who fulfill their ‘end’
Reflected current emerging political patterns
● Counter to Bush election in 2000
● Emergence of Obama
● Debates on Social issues > Economics, security
Aims/Impact:
- Expose: Backroom operations
- Critique: Washington/American political culture
- Stories: Dedicated public servants
- Governance: Dilemmas & limitations
- Pedagogical: Simplify & explain complex issues
- McCabe: Civics lesson
Designated Survivor
- Revival of ‘West Wing’ President against back drop of Republican ‘anti-intellectual’
President?
- Expansion of ‘national security state’ = Terrorism, FBI/CIA, foreign meddling
- Technology: Fast-paced, necessity of tech-person
- Less focus on process, more on executive action
Female Political Leaders
- Spurred by rise of Hillary Clinton?
- Women = Outsiders
● Consolidate control and doubters
● Tussle with male superiors
● Gendered expectations: Masculine → Feminine
● Role of media in shaping, critiquing, etc
● “Double standards”
- The Good Wife?
● Clinton scenario → Pull out of politics = Lawyer
● Current issues addressed
● Legal career → Politics always present = In cases, personal life, workplace
- Ethical action mired in unethical situations and people (always a constraint)
- The Good Wife = Impact of poliitcs
● On professional and personal lives
● Control over one’s life decrease
● ‘Public eye’ = Surveillance, neurotic, lack of privacy, judgement
● ‘Political bug’: Campaign, elections, power
● Interconnection: Local, state, national (federal)
● Cynical: ‘Good you do, does you know good’
LECTURES: POLITICAL DRAMA: TORTURED LEADERS
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Thematic Division:
1. Romantic & idealized
2. Cyncial & Manipulative
Tortured Leader?
- Cynical & corrupt: Environment or the leader?
● ‘Chicken & Egg’ problem
- Self-interested, ambitious, arrogant, self-aggrandizing
- Machiavellian = Power → Cycle: Get, use, lose (regain)
- Control over political narrative crucial
- Neurosis: Reality vs control/narrative
BLACKSTONE
- Indigenous people living in a reserve in Alberta, Ontario
- Many themes and complexities of the multifaceted lives of Indigenous peoples
- Impact of post-Settler political arrangements and systems
- Navigation of Indigenous-Settler, social, legal, economic and political systems
- Pedagogical and information value
-
POLITICAL ASPECTS
Complex governance systems: Indigenous and Settler systems
Conflict over: Priorities, money, culture, membership, ‘way of life’
Corruption: Within & without
Factions: Differing interests, solutions, visions, community goals
-
BAND CHIEF = “Tortured-Soul”
Weight of family and peoples’ well-being, personal demons
Power: Consolidation, manipulation, challenged
Deal with Settler-society agents, systems, and controls
CHALLENGERS = “Change-makers”
Different priorities
Importance of political power to direct, guide, reward AND hurt
Dynamism: Change is brewing and will come
SCANDAL
- Politics = Problem-solving
● Personal ambition = Drive → What is your limit?
● Morality = Contextual → What is the ‘greater good’?
● Actions = Reaction/retrospective → What is the PR strategy?
● Crisis = Damage control → Political narrative
- Boundary-less: Public and private = Blend and in danger
- Significant impact & power of non-elected actors
- Power gained outside of democratic processes
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Political process does not work
● Effective results = Background actions
● Non-democratic actors affect change
● ‘Protect the innocent’ – Cannot protect if you do not know Washington power
Problems of Politics
● Complicity = Not challenge system or its corruption
● System justified = ‘Correct results’
● Benefit = Power brokers always return
● Work > Love = All-consuming
● Insularity of power politics
HOUSE OF CARDS
- Machiavellian Manipulation = Demonstrates greatness
● Elections and ‘retail politics’
● Media management
● Procedural rules
● Ambition = Who’s willing to…?
- Secondary or ‘luxury’: American values → Justice, law, honour, democracy, compassion
- Democratic processes = Obstacle, not a social contract
● Ambitious & capable = Understand and use
● Prevents good work = Must be thwarted
● Abiding = Opportunistically, can’t overcome
Political Dramas
- Hope vs. Hatred
- Redemption
CHAPTER 6: SURVELLIANCE CULTURE: MELODRAMAS OF
NATIONAL SECURITY
Introduction
● Address question of ethic in America’s counterterrosism effort
● Intensified after 9/11, and evolved with ongoing tension associated with terrorism
● Varying models of scripting these shows:
- One-episode security issues that are more just “procedural” concerns
- Complex narrative that require one or multiple seasons to cover
● Engage with practices of surveillance by FIA, CIA, or fictional agencies
● Mostly contain content that is politically neutral, BUT reinforce certain stereotypes/fears
● Narrative complexity due to quickly evolve TV industry and new distribution models
- Example: 24 was distributed much faster and more conveniently, broadcasted in
double “blocks”, exploited DVD and streaming services
Examples of Shows
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Three Major National Security Melodramas
● 24 → Network show discusses a complex view of where terrorism came from
● Homeland → Discusses the emotional trauma of intelligence work while reinforcing
terrorist stereotypes
● The Americans → Goes against many stereotypes, focuses on Russians and Americans
as equals
About the Show
● Most recognizable example of a national security melodrama
● Main character → Jack Bauer
- Works at the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) to protect nation against wide variety
of security threats
● Each season composes a full 24-hour day (1-hour episodes depicting 1 hour)
- Reinforces the idea that every second counts when it comes to terroism
- Use of a digital clock between commercial breaks, counting down
seconds/minutes
- Use of split screens to convey simultaneous events
- Contributes to the feeling of suspense
● Negotiated America’s response to terrorism before and after 9/11
● Extended beyond national secuity
- Prepared voters for the possibility of electing a black president, was one in the
show Reading Formations of 24
● 24 functioned as a media franchise (webisodes, soundtracks, books, comics, games)
● Bennet & Woollacott – Must read the show via “reading formations” → Intertextual and
historical contexts that allow for possible interpretations of the show
Critiques
● Accused the show of justifying use of terror to extract information from terrorists – as
they bring about desired results
- That efficacy of tortue justified harsher techniques during the war on terrosim
● US Army leadership requested that 24 reduce violence in the show because real soldiers
began emulating the violence
- One of 24’s producers disputed this: Torture could work to obtain information
about an imminent threat”
● 24: The video game:
- Jack Bauer’s POV
- Unable to proceed in the game unless they torture for information
- Uses a “procedural rhetoric” → Games teach players how something works
● Critiqued for potentially implying that “all terrorists are Muslims from the Middle East”
- However, Tryon argues that it actually somewhat contradicts that critique
- Usually depicts Arab and Muslim, but a broader range of characters
The Second Season
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●
●
●
●
●
Focuses on a nuclear bomb set to detonate in Los Angeles
Jack focuses efforts on 1) finding the bomb and defusing it, then 2) flying it to a remote
location once he figures out the timer can’t be stopped, 3) figuring out who planted it
A recording turns the evidence towards a Middle Eastern terrorist
- But, they question the recording’s authenticity
President is worried about going to an unnecessary war with the Middle East, and for
this the VP removes him from office
- Sets a common trope, the president is always under attack
Bomber was an oil businessman who exploited cultural anxieties of Middle Eastern
terrorism to serve his financial interests
Critique of how manipulation to justify unnecessary wars can happen
Depiction of Family
● Jack protects his family almost as much as the country
● Has a daughter, Kim, who is estranged from but still tries to protect
● Attentive to emotional/psychological tolls that counterterrorism can have on family life
HOME
● Many regarded it as an “antidote” for excesses of 24
● Government surveillance was treated more neutrally, and was a more thoughtful
engagement of moral implications of security in the US
● Main character → Carrie Matheson
- Bipolar, emotionally distressed CIA agent
- Mental illness helps her logically work through cases
● Show illustrates the difficult politics of counterterrorism:
- Depicts Iranians as supportive of terrorism
- Holds out hope that people can collaborate towards a peaceful solution
OVERVIEW OF SEASONS
● Season 1 → Carrie reassigned to CIA, before was in Iraq and discovered an America
prisoner “flipped”, converted to Islam, is a sleeper agent for them
● Season 2 → Israel bombed factories in Iran that house nuclear weapons (critique of the
use of drone warfare), sleeper agent assassiantes VP, and then kills over 200 people
with a bomb
● Season 3 → Aftermath of bombing in S2, Carrie defends herself against charges that
she was responsible, sleeper agent flips back to US (becoming CIA agent) and falls in
love with/impregnates Carrie, sleeper assassinates head if Iranian national guard and
kills himself
The Americans
● Focuses on implications of spying through depiction of two Soviet spies (Jennings) with
a goal of overthrowing the United States
● Set in early 1980s (after Ronald Reagan elected to office)
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●
Spies are both deeply concerns with broader questions of justice and the safety of their
children, in particular the older child, Paige
Spies have children, Paige is drawn into culture of espionage
Important Concepts
● Focuses on how spying upsets traditional notions of identity
- KGB spies forced to assume alternate identities
- Seek to balance their desires to provide their children with a “normal” life with
their actual beliefs
● Focuses on how the Jennings’ espionage/secrecy affects family relationships
- Paige, finds out about her parents’ identity and must navigate while discovering
her own
- A spy agency is also looking to recruit Paige
- Paige undergoes baptism, an “opportunity to start a new life” – Shows the
American trait of self-reinvention and political transformation
● Conflicts about consumer culture and American Ideology come up in S3
- Spies buy Paige a rock album without consulting her, resulting in discussion
about conflicting identities/ideologies
Moral Implications of Spying
● Spies have to kill innocent characters that aren’t spies but are a danger to them
● Spies constantly form alternate identities to manipulate innocent people
● Encounter flashbacks their adolescence in USSR → Training sessions where they had
to have sex with a number of people for “role preparation”
- Philip seduces a 15-year old girl to manipulate her parents
- He is mindful of the moral implications of his actions
● Spies next door neighbour is an FBI agent → Forces one to see the Cold War from both
Sovient/American perspectives
- Neighbour is morally compromised, even with good intentions
● Shows the real villain are the beaurocrat institutions and Cold War ideologies that drive
● Reminder that “good and evil” narratives cannot be sustained, unlike Reagan’s
one-sided POV
CONCLUSION
● National security melodramas allow us the engage with the “ongoing debates about the
securitization of American life”
● Illustrates issues of torture, spying, drones, the intersection between national security
and domestic life (“work follows you home”)
● Emotional impact of spy culture/counterterrorism on family
24 → Bauer realizes that his worn endangers those he loves
Homeland → Characters face traumatic experiences that damage family relationships
The Americans → How espionage tests relationships
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LECTURE – Political Drama: National Security
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●
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24
Homeland
The Americans
Berlin Station
SEAL Team
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The Unit
MacGyver
Alias
Spooks
Mission Impossible
The Brave
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Burn Notice
Covert Affairs
Funy: GetSmart,
Archer
Others?
Contrast from Other Political Drama
SAME:
● Political procedural (episode) +
serialized narrative (season)
● Political, ethical & moral
ambivalence
● Centered on core characters:
values, position, behaviour,
‘American’
● Role in Mediated Citizenship
DIFFERENCES:
● Focus: National security & Terrorism
- Biometrics? Data-mining? Racial,
ethnics, national profiling?
- Privacy?
- Surveillance?
- Torture? Extortion? Revenge?
- Freedom vs Security?
● Ethics: Action & results = Gage
● Context: Post-9/11 → Boosts
● Politics of Survelliance: Process, practices,
agents, structures
● Politics of National Defense: War,
counter-terrorism, weaponry
Impact of Media Business Changes?
Gillan: Impact of industrial culture + network ad-model → Keep viewers engaged in show?
- DVR/PVR, Cable, Streaming = Why watch in real-time or ads?
- 9/11 = 24-hour & immediate cable news norm (industrial)
- Homeland, Americans = Cable = Don’t need ads
- 24 = Real-time + double-blocks + immediate re-runs + other media (video games)
National Security: Who?
● 24: Counter-terrorism agents
● Homeland: Intelligence analysts
● Americans: Double agents
● Which side? Betrayal? Internal or External threat?
● Framing questions: moral/ethical vs. legal/constitutional?
● Gillan: Action over Deliberation → ‘Time-bomb scenario’
Reactive or Proactive?
● Reactive → Political Reflection:
- America’s counter-terrorism response
- Current stories: Sleeper cells, double agents, ‘American jihadis’, fifth columns’
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●
- Stereotypes/fears: Racial profiling, ‘Axis of Evil’, religious zealots
Proactive → Political Impact:
- Moral dilemmas of agents
- PTSD of agents, POWs
- Turmoil in private lives → Isolation = Shell/protection
- What if: Black President? Double Agent’s self-agency? Family?
A Kind of Political Reality TV
● Politics references:
- Torture → 24 = Effectively saves us
- Counter-intelligence → Homeland = Religious-based antagonisms
● Standard for action:
- 24: Utilitarian justification = Helps/saves ‘most of us’
- The Americans: State over person = Over family, friends, innocents
● Moral ambiguity & challenge:
- Profiling can create tunnel-vision missing true threats
- Good people under attack from internal threats & manipulation, too
- Actions eventually have consequences = Characters address/react
- Personal/familial cost is character’s ‘soul’
- Greater surveillance makes us:
● Since 9/11: Safe = Protected
● Since Manning/Snowden: Unsafe = Targeted
- Conflict & cooperation fluid & contextual
LECTURE: POLITICAL DRAMA: CRIME & LEGAL DRAMAS
Why is this Politics?
- Law is political
- How a society creates organized rules for dealing with conflict and encouraging
cooperation
- Law = Rules + How to handle rule breaking
Why Law & Order?
- Nearly 30 years of shows (main show, spin-offs, etc)
- “Ripped from the Headlines’ = Fictionalized versions of real-life stories & cases
- Raises all types of issues: Political, social, economic, cultural, international, etc
● Formula:
- Law = What is the issue?
- Order = What is done to resolve (or not) the issue?
● Issues covered:
- Nationally important
- Political/politicized (e.g., abortion, children)
- Divisive, morally ambiguous
● David Black = ‘Civil Dialogue’
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Is it Liberal?
- Sides to issues → Moral ambiguity
- Individual <--> Society
- Educating on Rights
- Checks & balances = Self-regulating system
- Institutions: Good (equity) → Work (regulate) → Reform (change)
- Humans = Good
Is it Conservative?
- Order → Primacy
- Authority + Rules = Override moral imperatives
- Moral certainty
- Repetition = Predictability
- Humans = Corrupted
What is the Impact of National Security?
- Impact of Political Violence + National Security
- Post-9/11: Terrorism
- Links with: 24, NCIS series, numbers, bones, etc
- Castonguay: ‘War on terror’
- Lee: ‘Trauma of living in violent culture’
● “Terror TV”
- Political violence + state response
- Crime, military, terroism, espionage, immigration, etc
- Contradiction: Agents challenge rules, authority, etc
- Normalization: Surveillance, privacy invasion
What are some Critiques
- Diversity → Network Pressure
- Tropes/sterotypes:
● Gangs → Hispanics, African-Americans
● Terrorists → Middle East
● Sexual Violence → Males, Upper Class
- Crime rates = Declining
- Terrorism = Limited
- Comfort: Bad guys get punished
“POLITICS OF LAW & ORDER” (PP. 130-133)
Law & Order
- Delivers our contemporary politics up to us
- Obvious and contradiction-laden political implications
- Engages contemporary politics through its “Ripped from the Headlines” claim, which has
to be modulated by black card disclaimers about characters and events being fictional
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Una-bomber, since 1990
Scripts gravitate toward the headline cases that are generators of political controversy
Makes clear the generation of political controversy with episodes “ripped from the
headlines” is self-conscious and self-congratulatory (people who make the show take
pride in this claim and see it as a defining feature of their project)
Episodes often take on highly politicized and national divisive issues: over the decade
plus of production these have included abortion clinic bombings, date rape, frozen
embryo custody, euthanasia, recovered memory prosecutions, black rage defenses,
community notification of the presence of sex offenders, organ transplant access, militia
and religious cult activites, female circumcision, and AIDS privacy rights
Those affiliated see it as staging a no-holds-barred confrontation with controversy
Presents issues the country is trying to deal with moral issues
Makers see themselves as facilitating an ambitious civic undertaking while
simultaneously producing award-winning television shows with high ratings
Third dimension of the program’s political engagement is of its sequential casting
decisions, though this history might be seen cynically as making a virtue of necessity
Littlefield threatened the program with cancellation unless women were added to the all
male cast
What looks like a moderately progressive affirmative action casting sequence is actually
the convergence of network pressure, individual actors’ decision-making, and careful
attention to ratings
Series has capitalized on these changes by thematizing resulting gender and racial
tensions on the job
Testosterone-generated tensions of the earliest casting permutations – which some
viewers continue to evince nostalgia for – has given way to the contact zone grappings
Ways Law & Order → Engages politics
- Structural principles and formulaic
- Divided format represents egalitarian fairness
- Variety of positions that the players on both sides of the divided hour often take on
controversial issues testifies to the openness, the undogmatic, dialogic, anti-ideological
climate that the program’s makers proclaim
- Empirically associate ritual and repetitive formulae with conservatism, with the validation
and reaffirmation of authority and convention
- Tightness and predictability of the container that packages Law & Order may serve to
constain the free and open exploration of controversy and complexity
- Appetitite for repetition, not unlike what drives the consumption of grocery-shelf romance
novels, can accommodate seemingly contradictory desires – for transgressive and
emancipatory pleasure, on the one hand, and for the comforts of predictable
containment of that pleasure, on the other
- Underlying assumption is that the US criminal justice system works
- Many episodes are devoted to exposing and punishing those who disgrace the system
(testimoney is key to the criminal justice process)
- System works because of its policies
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Realpolitiks of Liberalism – As we know and experience on the ground
US politics is marked by the evolution or the incursion of neoliberalism, by which we
mean the pragmatically poll-driven re-shaping of liberalism that we sometimes have
trouble distinguishing from what gets termed neo-conservatism
System is not a static abstraction, rather, highly subject to dynamic historical revision
that is based on political pressures
Self-policing “system” that “works” to protect the “people”
Episode relating to racial profiling anagram (DWB)
Racial profiling by police and the historical phenomenon of lynching in the US are part of
ta continuum of racist practices
Law & Order’s putative and self-conscious liberalism, as evidenced by its
issues-oriented focus, its casting configurations, its structural commitment, and most
notably, its own self-reflexive rhetoric is the liberalism, which to say that it is deeply
compromised and self-deluding
LECTURE: POLITICAL CARTOONS AND SUPERHERO SHOWS
Political Cartoons
- Some cartoons are overtly political:
● Our cartoon president
● Lil Bush
● They don’t survive for long?
● Many cartoons have political and social commentary as a show theme, a
sub-plot, guest
- Intertextuality = Central to show
- Present: Currency → Commentary
- Past: Retrospect → Perspective
The Simpsons – Comedy around lower middle-class American nuclear heteronormative family i
- Various political episodes:
● Founding of Springfield
● Immigration
● Elections & Congress
● Municipal politics
● Gun control
- Challenge current politics? Critique?
- Reconcile and re-establish the status quo?
- Subversive or submissive
- Politics as non-consequential = nothing really changes?
South Park – Life in a town but focussed on lives of 3 + 1 childhood friends
- Seeks ‘extreme’ commentaries from ends of political spectrums
● Left: Charities, development
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● Right: Guns, religion
Key issue: Politics of ‘free speech’
● Limitations? SP = Unnecessary → Ridicule & disassemble extreme positions =
Discard
● Mill’s ‘Dead Dogma’ = Do you know why this view?
● Popper’s Open Society = Do you understand why the other side is wrong?
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Political TV: Superheroes
DC Comics
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Arrow
The Flash
Gotham
Supergirl
Legends of Tomorrow
Black Lightning
Krypton
DC Daily
Titans
Doom Patrol
Marval Comics
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Daredevil
Jessica Jones
Luke Cage
Iron Fist
The Defenders
The Punisher
Agents of SHIELD
Agent Carter
Inhumans
The Gifted
Runaways
Are Superheroes Political?
- Deal with political issues & themes: Power, ideology, social relations, political culture,
current events, etc
- Used as for political messaging = ‘Stand for something’
● Challenges: Political values, social change, economic issues, etc
● Reinforce: Nationalism, patriotism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, etc
- Engage with political ideas, politicans, institutions, law & enforcement, justice, public
order, social movements, global issues → Politics
- Builds on tradition of Mythology: ‘Better angels’ + ‘great powers’ + ‘mystical’ = Political &
moral themes
- Problems: Have not had much engagement with political science
- Politics affects = US Foreign Policy
● Pre-Cold War = Golden Age = Work with US to defeat Nazi
● Cold War = Comics Code Authority
- Superheroes fight Communists, socialist themes, etc
- American exceptionalism reinforced
● Silver Age: Superheroes tribulations BUT mesh with American values
● Post-Cold War: Unified to save the (American-led) world BUT set aside political,
social or economic differences
Some Limits of Political Engagement of Superheroes
- Modernity & Urban life
- Vigilantism = Unregulated power = Moral code → Can’t rely on this alone in reality
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Liberal slant (Blue states)
Current Issues = Trump: Immigration & Security → Xenophobia: Fear of foreigners
● Diversified characters and casting choices
● ‘The Other’: Aliens = ‘aliens’, immigrants, refugees
● Leaders = The ‘Self’ = Represent US (or do they?)
● Aliens = Divided: Co-existence vs. Conquer (or leave?)
● Not Change = Everything works out (for whom?)
CONCLUSION
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Political TV is a very flexible category of TV
Post-network era results in people rarely watching the same shows at the same time
- Research shows liberals/conservatives watch vastly different shows now
Line between entertainment and informational programming is becoming more blurred
Trump’s Candidacy
● 2016 election questioned the role of news media in creating the political spectacle
● Policing Trump’s public statements usually backfired and made him more popular
● Debates broadcasted on TV had incredibly large audiences
● Was a change for Fox News to promote its own brand
Fox Debate (2016)
● Structured around “candidate challenges” → Moderators asked questions/identifed
obstacles that contenders would have to overcome
● E.g., Trump was asked to support the Republican nominee regardless of who it was
● E.g., Had to defend himself against accusations of sexist language
● Because of the “candidate challenges”, very little time is spent on actually discussing
important issues such as Climate change, income equality, BLM, etc
● After the debate, Trump attacked Fox for asking “unfair” questions
- Exposed issues with Fox’s brand:
1. Status as a profit-driven network
2. Role in promoting the Republican party
3. Claim to be a credible news source
● Controversy created “fireworks” (political spectacle, increased interest in cable news
The Daily Show Wrap-Up
● Ended during the Trump primary
● Stewart called the “most power political watchdog of the post-network era”
● Megan Garber – Hosting the Daily Show meant having “influence over national soul”
● New forms of political satire appear:
- John Oliver (comedic investigative journalism to address ignored political issues)
- Wilmore’s “The Nightly Show” (political barbershop)
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Melodramas
● Help audiences make sense of complex issues
● Wide variety of issues like conducting of elections, voter fraud campaign financing, etc
● Engage with complex issues about justice and the legal system
Role of Political TV in Shaping Mediated Citizenship
● “Mediated citizenship” → Citizens engage to make sense of political issues
● Citizens play the role of “media curators” by choosing what to watch/engage with
- Variety of effects:
● Promote more engaged and informed citizens
● Promote dissemination of information
● Contribute to increased political polarization
● Important to be attentive to ways in which political news media may skew the content
of/distribution of stories
- In Republican debate (2016), issues like climate change, income inequality
college tuition costs or police brutality were rarely discussed, yet the debates
were popular
● “Holds out hope that a more transparent and responsive political system is still possible”