This week, being week 4, we were focusing on public pedagogy. The reading for this week, pages 71 – 95 of Sophia McClennen’s America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy highlighted the importance of public pedagogy, which is described as Henry Giroux’s theory, which argues that most learning takes place outside the traditional classroom and that public culture is often the primary means through which society acquires knowledge and learns to model social interaction (McClennen, 2011). Moreover though, the article highlighted the importance of satire as a form of public pedagogy using Stephen Colbert as a prime example of the type of satire that became prevalent after 9/11 providing Americans an opportunity to laugh at, reflect on and engage with a series of social crises (McClennen, 2011). The article argues that satire deserves greater attention as one of the most significant forms of critical public pedagogy in operation today, using Colbert’s The Colbert Report as an example of the type of television show that enables its audience to foster public debate and political engagement (McClennen, 2011).

In class we then had to discuss some examples we gathered of critical public pedagogy, that is satire that criticises public pedagogy. I chose Friendlyjordies’ critical satirical analysis of an A Current Affair segment in a video titled A Current Affair: The Idiot’s Choice. Friendlyjordies firstly highlights how ACA seems to only show stories on “dole bludgers” and “When neighbours don’t become good friends” (mimicking the Neighbours theme song). In this video, Friendlyjordies highlights how ACA focuses on “dole bludgers” who use taxpayer’s money to live a ‘lazy’ life riding the coat-tails of welfare benefits, portraying them as leeches on the system. The ACA story then highlights how $40 million was recovered from “welfare frauds”. However Friendlyjordies then points out that Rupert Murdoch got a  $30 million government handout (of taxpayer’s money) to “improve sports coverage” whilst paying nothing in tax, labeling Murdoch as the real “welfare fraud”.

This type of video from Friendlyjordies is quite a typical format for him as he often criticises media outlets for the political bias.

MCCLENNEN, S. 2011. America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy, New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.