In the first class, we mainly shared our perspectives of comedy news to come up with a proper definition. On the question ‘What do you think is meant by comedy news’, our views are more positive that recognised the value of this content. As Hoffman and Young’s quote says, I strongly agree that ‘comedy news’ can increase political participation. In my opinion, ‘comedy news’ is more popular in Western countries under the multi-party system, so comedians are allowed to satire the happening social and political issues. Compared to traditional news, late night comedy programs are more accessible that hosts select the controversial news, explain the news by using everyday words and turn news into something funny. As a result, young audiences, including myself, will be more interested in watching late night shows and consider this form as one of the main sources of news. On the positive side, it gives an opportunity to dig deeper and hear about others’ views. If audiences could combine the information from traditional news and late night shows, it will help them to think critically and to ‘examine politics’ (Gray, Jones &Thompson, 2009). For example, the ‘John Oliver Effect’ proves the powerful influences of comedy news in real-life. According to Brownstone (2015), John Oliver successfully encouraged his audiences to send their comments of ‘net neutrality’ to Federal Communication Commission, and the government had never received so many information which led to the system crash. To achieve this amazing result, John Oliver first made fun of how traditional media and government talked about this issue, and pointed out that most people would not understand the actual meaning of ‘net neutrality’. He used numbers of examples, funny metaphors, dramatic but real videos to explain the issue in just a couple minutes. After watching this, audiences would feel that John Oliver was the one who understood their minds and wanted to trust him. 

However, in the last part, John Oliver imitated the candidate’s speech which was very emotional and provocative. And I raised the questions: Is comedy news more biased? Will audiences only listen to John Oliver without having any basic knowledge of those issues? On this question, I found a survey that talked about the hostile media effect and proved the bias on political content in late night comedy programs. According to this article, audiences who support different parties will have different views on the same news. Late night show hosts usually add their personal opinions or even speak for their social groups, but their words still affect part of audiences. It is very important that late night show audiences can distinguish the biased content and think of it to improve the quality of comedy news media.

References:

Arpan, LM, Bae, B, Chen, YS & Greene Jr., GH 2011, “Perceptions of Bias in Political Content in Late Night Comedy Programs”, Sage Journals, vol.5, iss.3, pp. 158-173, <https://doi.org/10.1177/1931243111421765>.

Brownstone, S 2015, “John Oliver Inspired a Bill Introduced in the State Legislature Today”, The Stranger, updated 16 January, viewed 23 July 2018, <https://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2015/01/16/john-oliver-inspired-a-bill-introduced-in-the-state-legislature-today>.