Spreading cynicism: On Friday, The Washington Post’s columnist Richard Morin wrote, “This is not funny: Jon Stewart and his hit Comedy Central cable show may be poisoning democracy.” Wow, that’s heavy, and it’s one of Editor-In-Chief Jon’s favorite shows — when he can stay up late enough to watch it.
Appears Morin was bloviating about a supposed study by a couple of political scientists from East Carolina University that allegedly found that “young people who watch Stewart’s faux news program, The Daily Show, develop cynical views about politics and politicians that could lead them to just say no to voting.” Previous research among college students found that 48 percent of them watched The Daily Show and only 23 percent of them followed “hard news” programs closely.
Puh-leeze! And Stewart makes them not read newspapers by the droves, too, I suppose. The slack-ass voting habits of college students is a big story — every election year — and it hasn’t changed since I had hair down to my shoulders and was politically poisoned by Chevy Chase’s cynical impersonation of a clumsy President Gerald Ford on Saturday Night Live.
So these yahoo perfessors did a speriment:
To test for a “Daily Effect,” [Jody] Baumgartner and [Jonathan S.] Morris showed video clips of coverage of the 2004 presidential candidates to one group of college students and campaign coverage from “The CBS Evening News” to another group. Then they measured the students’ attitudes toward politics, President Bush and the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.).
The results showed that the participants rated both candidates more negatively after watching Stewart’s program. Participants also expressed less trust in the electoral system and more cynical views of the news media, according to the researchers’ article, in the latest issue of American Politics Research.
“Ultimately, negative perceptions of candidates could have participation implications by keeping more youth from the polls,” they wrote.
Come on, maybe they just felt the choice sucked so much that voting seemed rather pointless. I know I did. How can anyone remain uncynical in this postmodern national political environment where partisanship and pandering are exceeded only by cronyism, fraud, influence for sale, malfeasance and the president rules absolutely?
Au contraire. I think Jon Stewart is performing a public service by showing the boobs and crooks who run this country for the bozos they are. Come on, college kids, let’s give Jon a big hip, hip, hooray! Hello? Kids? Are you out there?
- Topic: News & Comment
- Topics: Elections, TV
I’m 51 years old and wouldn’t miss Stewart’s show (and, believe me, MANY of my like-aged friends also watch–so much for the “kids” being the only ones who watch). Additionally, all of my sons (now aged 24, 20, 16, and 14) have watched along with me for years.
The oldest two would not miss voting and the youngest two, upon hearing about this report; each deemed it “crazy”. Both wish they could have voted in the last election or two and say they cannot wait until they are old enough to vote. I do not in anyway credit Jon Stewart with my kids’ view of ‘civic duty’. Rather, it is the environment at home where they are encouraged to participate! You bet they have a cynical view of government but, then, so do I. It does not mean you don’t vote!
Even these idiot professors SPECULATED that “…negative perceptions of candidates could have participation implications by keeping more youth from the polls…” A couple of things: 1. The negative perceptions were based on being exposed to the facts, not jokes and
2. COULD does not equal WON’T.
Why did the students view the candidates more negatively after viewing Stewart’s show? Most likely that through humor, he shows more truth and more of the foibles of candidates attempting to shape their message to fit an audience. As a viewer pointed out this morning on MSNBC (words to the effect): “as if the ‘real’ news makes you want to run out and vote!”
Cannot wait to see what Stewart makes of this report tonight.
Bible thumping preachers have used the old “HOLY BOOK” to prove anything they want to “prove” also! “Could”, “should”, “would”, “if”, “might” and so indicate the use of the subjunctive mood of the active verb, thus setting reality and the need for “PROOF” aside.
Hence the discourse is “speculative in nature” and, as with “strong drink being RAGING”, “whosoever is deceived thereby IS INDEED NOT WISE!”
Control of the media and disdain for free speech are hallmarks of fascism. These right-wing reptiles can dish it out, but they sure can’t take it!
this is preamble for threatening comedy channel with broadcasting fines for content “contrary to the public interest” == they are merely laying the groundwork to get it off the air.
When most THINKING Americans get their news fron the Daily show instead of GE’s CBS or Haliburton’s NBC, or FOXaganda, the elites, who have gone to ALL the trouble of dumbing down the media stream, have to do SOMETHING!
THe LAST thing they want is an informed, educated electorate.