The Daily show a threat to Democracy.

Hobbes

otherwise known as the "The daily show effect".

http://apr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/34/3/341

I find the article somewhat funny. The reason its popular is because Jons team have backbones in asking questions the actual media should be.

They have been recently blackballed from the Republican party for it as well. Clearly some people have no sense of humour.

Heres the news story on it if you don't want to read the pdf.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201474.html

magick

the daily show is one of the best shows on american tv not only does it show the idiots running the country but both sides of the 2 party system.

The repubs and Demos are basically the same the only thing is that the Repubs actually can spin a story , the dems cant seem to make headway for crap at the mo because security is top of the political agenda

bonkey

Its interesting to note the difference between how the data is presented in the original article and how the WP decides to spin it.

The article mentions how Stewart's show can have an attitudinal impact - making people more skeptical and cynical of all candidates. However, in its conclusion, it has the following to say about behavioural[/i impact:

We have demonstrated that there are attitudinal effects to exposure to The Daily Show, but what of behavioral effects? Increased internal efficacy might, all other things being equal, contribute to greater participation. Citizens who understand politics are more likely to participate than those who do not. Moreover, the increased cynicism associated with decreased external efficacy may contribute to an actively critical orientation toward politics. This may translate into better citizenship, because a little skepticism toward the political system could be considered healthy for democracy

The Wp, on the other hand, is nowhere near as objective and balanced in its interpretation of hte paper. Nope, it concludes that:

This is not funny: Jon Stewart and his hit Comedy Central cable show may be poisoning democracy.

Two political scientists 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.

See the difference? The study concludes that attitudes are changed by the show, and that the behavioural impact could go either way and could be a good thing or a bad thing.

The WP, on the other hand, summarises this behavioural impact down to "it might be bad".

Technically, they're fully correct. It might be bad....but thats not what the study was about. The study was about the attitudes engendered by TDS. Not only that, but one must also note that an increase in skepticism or cynicism is not necessarily a bad thing if one was previously too blindly unquestioning and accepting.

The WP seems to suggest that because Stewart's style of comedy is making people less satisfiied with the status quo it is unquestionably a bad thing. It sees "just say no" voting as a bad thing regardless of whether or not one is unhappy with both parties and all candiadates.

So we could really sum this up as :

Scientific study finds Jon Stewart and The Daily Show make people less accepting of the two-party system and all that this entails. Conservative newspaper says this is a bad thing.

monument

bonkey wrote:

Its interesting to note the difference between how the data is presented in the original article and how the WP decides to spin it.

To be fair, it’s how one columnist tries to spin it.

fly_agaric

This is not funny: Jon Stewart and his hit Comedy Central cable show may be poisoning democracy.

LOL. Surely there are much bigger dangers to democracy in the US than a blasted TV programme. I can think of two off the top of my head.

I think you're all confused. When they say democracy they mean "democracy".

bonkey

monument wrote:

To be fair, it’s how one columnist tries to spin it.

Sure.

Do you believe this columnist to be unrepresentative of the paper's general stance?

The WP has come in for a lot of criticism recently for being a "pandering" newspaper where previously it has been highly regarded as one of the more objective sources of news.

I see this column as being a further indication of the slide of the quality of the paper, as well as typically indicative of either media sensationalism in general or the inability of the media (again, in general) to correctly understand and accurately report on anything which is scientific (as opposed to something that has, as Colbert might say, a feel of scienciness about it).

YMMV, of course.

monument

bonkey wrote:

Do you believe this columnist to be unrepresentative of the paper's general stance?

I have seen nothing to make me believe that the Post’s general stance includes a mantra saying the Daily Show is a threat to democracy.

bonkey

monument wrote:

I have seen nothing to make me believe that the Post’s general stance includes a mantra saying the Daily Show a threat to democracy.

Interesting understanding of what a general stance involves.....explicit and narrowly-scoped declarations of policy.

I can see there's no point in us discussing this further, so I'll just agree now that we don't see this the same way.

monument

Even in a general non-policy way. Just because one columnist has a certain view point doesn’t mean such is the consciences at the newspaper - the same goes for the Irish Times, the Guardian, the New York Times, the LA Times etc.

For example, with the Irish Time, it’s most probably that Browne, O'Toole, Waters, and Raftery, and the ex-columnists Myers and Steyn have uttered out stuff that in all likely hood only a small percentage agree with, or fully agree with. With a diverse, and sometimes opposing, set of views, it would be hard for every singe article from them all to be the general stance of a newspaper. Or maybe I’m getting this totally wrong, can bits of what you see as the general stance be opposing other bits of such?

I said there’s nothing to make me believe it’s a general stance, but as a non-Post reader I’m open to correction. If the person were let away with the bit as a news story rather then a column, or if there were/are many columnists writing in the same vain, it’d be another story.