Topic: Stephen Colbert

Comedy vs the Traditional News Networks

By Bill Larson | April 19, 2007 |

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Maher are often excellent sources of information on current world affairs.  Studies have shown that viewers of their new genre of news as comedy are more informed about world affairs, are generally also more cynical about candidates, campaigns, the electoral system and the news media than network news viewers. Like Clarksville Online, they are an excellent alternative to traditional media.

Using the entire half-hour programs as the basis of analysis yielded the same results: there was just as much substance to The Daily Show’s coverage as there was on the network news. And The Daily Show was much funnier, with less of the hype—references to photo ops, political endorsements, and polls—that typically overshadows substantive coverage on network news, according to the study…

Professor Fox’s study, titled “No Joke: A Comparison of Substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Broadcast Network Television Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election Campaign,” will be published next summer in the Journal of Broadcast and Electronic Media. - Ars Technica interview with Professor Fox

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