This week I’m focusing on the reading The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism by Geoffrey Baym.
I think discursive integration sits somewhere between fake news and traditional journalism that effectively blurs the two together. In the reading it was a new phenomenon but now, particularly with social media and influencers, is commonplace. I believe that discursive integration is still a proto-genre because there are few ideas satire and comedy news explore, but online on YouTube, TikTok and on meme Twitter/Instagram. Social media allows creators to subvert expectations of news and comedy in ways network TV shows can’t, because they are bound to stakeholders.
The reading discusses fake news before it held its Trump-era meaning. The use of ‘fake news’ when discussing comedy news implies comedians aren’t interested in real or meaningful social and political discourse. I think this phrase was used to acknowledge satirists but since the 2016 presidential campaign has become a way to divide viewers and cast doubt on traditional news sources. In comedy news bias, lived experience and passion is expected and encouraged and is used as a call-to-action, but the same ideas aren’t available to traditional news outlets. The implications of reporting fake news force traditional media to remove morals and ethics of the reporters out which sanitises them and alienates viewers. Knowing the origins of the phrase (and that Trump said it loads) it is easy to understand why it has such negative connotations today.
The reading talks about how comedy news, and network TV in general, is a for-profit media. This creates questions around the efficacy of comedy news. If people go to comedians for their news, should they continue to report on outrageous, random, exciting stories or should there be a pivot towards local/state/national policy. I think that late-night hosts who are less politically active such as Jimmy Fallon and James Cordon will pick up the slack and may start to report on the weather, taxes and other boring stuff the way traditional news shows do now.