Amarnath AmarasingamReviews

Hit and miss series of essays. While some contain new details and information about the impacts of satirical political TV, others have pretty serious methodological flaws or factual inaccuracies. As a social scientist, I found some of the obvious methodological issues to be highly disconcerting, especially when it came to limitations on generalizability. One paper in particular claims to be highly generalizable to the entire population of The Daily Show viewers, but uses a very specific population, college students. While college students may make up a substantial proportion of the show's viewers, by no means do residential college students represent TV viewers or voters in terms of racial makeup, socioeconomic status, employment, etc. That's a pretty key generalizability limitation that the paper utterly ignored.

Stuff like this should have been caught and addressed by the editor. However, since this volume reflects an uneasy tension between accessibility to the layman and academic structure, I think things like this fell through the cracks.

Worth a read if you're interested in the topic, but people with a social science background shouldn't expect professional-level work.

The continued popularity and cultural relevance of The Daily Show, hosted by Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report is a source of bemusement to some and concern to others. In some ways, both shows have enjoyed surprising longevity for comedy programs. Some people are concerned, though, by the impact of the cynical humor on political participation, particularly on a generation where many, according to anecdotal evidence, get their news mostly from these two faux newscasts on Comedy Central.

Scholars have taken notice of this conventional wisdom and are beginning to study the two programs' impacts on politics and journalism. Several recent examinations are collected in "The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News." After an overview of previous scholarship, there are ten essays attempting to judge the influence of these programs on such matters as partisanship, civic discourse, television journalism.

The ten essays are evenly split between, first, social science examinations and, then, theoretical considerations. Unfortunately, this creates a book with very different halves, and many readers will probably favor one half over the other, depending on their preferred approach to such matters. In general, I appreciated the more theoretical essays, in part because I found some of the social science articles a bit repetitive (though, admittedly, that is a risk when essays from different contributors are assembled in a volume such as this).

That said, the most important piece in the book is likely the first one, which considers the amount of airtime given to scientific issues on both television programs. The contributors, Lauren Feldman, Anthony Leiserowitz, and Edward Maibach, offer data that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report devote more attention than other television news organizations and suggest that they use their comedy as a hook to provide serious education on such issues as technology, the environment, and global warming.

The theoretical articles each seek to deconstruct the approaches of the two fake news shows, and are generally to be applauded for making that less arduous reading than it might be -- after all, what is fun about trying to explain how a joke works? Among these, though, the best is an exploration of the interview styles of both Stewart and Colbert, which highlights the opportunity that Colbert's character performance allows him to ask questions other television interviewers cannot ask, leading frequently to more free-flowing conversations than seen in most promotional interviews for book or movie releases. (I quibble only that the author does not credit the influence of David Letterman in this practice.)

In sum, the solid academic articles will interest those looking for a scholarly considerations of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but will be a disappointment to more casual fans hoping for light-hearted approaches, which are almost non-existent in these very serious essays.

Interesting collection of essays on the effects of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. These two have changed a lot, and many people now rely on them for news consumption. What does this mean? That is what these essays cover, the broad and specific effects of the dynamic fake news duo.

After reading the Foreword, Preface and Introduction of this Early Reviewer selection I was tempted to forego the remainder of the book. Its style was rather academic and dry making it difficult to focus on the subject at hand. Fortunately, I endured and began reading the essays/studies, all pertaining to politics as comedy and the possible benefits of satire, as seen on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show and Steve Colbert's The Colbert Report, in educating viewers. The most rewarding portion of each essay is the "Discussion" section where all the scientific Tables, Tests and Graphs are broken down into laymen's terms. Using the 2008 presidential campaign the studies demonstrate how hero's and villain's are created and marketed and through satire the layers of what is called real news is peeled back "to reveal, with silliness, the silliness of the supposedly important issue". After reading these essay's I'll be looking at the 2012 presidential campaign with learned eyes.
Would I recommend........................Hardly, if this book were as entertaining as the shows it is studying it would certainly be more mainstream and easier to read, still I'm glad it fell into my hands.

Very interesting, although most definitely not for the general reader. While the topics covered are both intriguing and important, they are clearly geared toward the student of political science. While not incomprehensible to the non-academic reader, it is not light reading.

Who knew comedy was such serious business? For the past 10 years Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and more recently Stephen Colbert have filled the role of court jester, particularly as it relates to our political leaders and institutions. The Stewart/Colbert Effect is a series of scholarly essays that try to answer the question “Is fake news more real than real news?”

A disclaimer: as a political science professor I use clips from both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report in my lectures.While some critics believe they are creating a new generation of cynics, I believe that their satire and irony are explaining to many how dysfunctional our political system has become - largely the result of real news becoming entertainment-television. Instead of thoughtful discussions on important issues we are subjected to horserace coverage of political campaigns that does little to add to the political discourse today.

While TDS or TCR may not always add to the discourse their form of “alternative journalism” gets at the heart of the absurdities of what is entertainment news.

The essays present some contrasting data - for viewers, do these programs make us more politically knowledgeable and engage or less? Can viewers discern between satire and reality? Do these programs hurt or help our democratic system?

These are important questions because both Sterwart and Colbert have been on Time magazine’s list of most influential people. In addition, Stewart was named of the the top four most trusted journalists in America (behind Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Anderson Cooper). We have a declining (yet warranted) level of trust in traditional media and I am glad that TDS and TCR are there to report on it. These essays will help you understand what it all means. This is a book for the serious student of comedy and fake news.

The essays published in this book analyze different aspects of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. While some of the essays are interesting, most of them are very academic and filled with jargon. Many of the essays are repetitive and discussion of if these shows are "real news" or "fake news" gets a little tiring. I did enjoy reading some of the essays, but, again, most are very dry. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a real interest in analyses and research methods.½

Every month, the LibraryThing Early Reviews program offers a bunch of books available for review (see: www.librarything.com and look me up...I'm jeffv). What book you get seems to be random among the books you select from the list of all available. Every month, there's always a book I hope to get more than any other...but rarely do I get that one exactly. Still, getting semi-random books to read and review is fun.

The Stewart/Colbert Effect is one of those books I really had hoped to get. I watch both shows religiously (albeit time-shifted on Tivo). Some of the books I've reviewed are those I bought after watching author interviews on either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. I know that I am being influenced watching those shows...and I though this book would be a fun look at the nature of that influence.

I thought wrong.

The Stewart/Colbert Effect is a VERY academic look on the effects these shows have on topics such as political acuity and awareness of hot topics in science. More specifically, it's a an exhaustive study on the comparison of "fake news" to traditional, ostensible, "real news" when it comes to market penetration of a given message.

This book is a collection of essays that are basically summary reports of numerous experiments or analysis to quantify the effects of these two shows (and touches upon other late-night shows such as Leno and Letterman'). This is definitely not a book for the tin-foil hat set....the thought that such things are being analyzed to the extent they are is somewhat disconcerting for privacy advocates.

However, the whole thing seems to be much ado about little. The Daily Show and the Colbert Report tend to attract well-educated viewers, those already inclined to have awareness of political and scientific topics. It does help those viewers who otherwise shun such topics. In summary, there is a measurable effect, but it's not a very large one. Protracted to a larger audience though...

And that is where the one relavation in this book comes in. It's not that Stewart and Colbert can have a certain influence on their viewers...it's that the shows they mock use many of the same techniques to similarly manipulate their viewers. I find it horrifying that Fox News does what it does and still manages to have popular media personas that I find utterly despicable. .But now I find (through reverse analysis) that perhaps Stewart and Colbert are doing the same thing to me. Hmm....

One thing I have a problem with is the labeling of Stewart and Colbert as purveyors of "fake news". Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live is fake kews. Stewart and Colbert take real news and often ask real questions that the obsequious mass media does not. The nature of their questions come off as satire...often because it is phrased in such a manner to make the existing evidence look ridiculous, or because they mock the responsive to contrary opinion (Fox News in particular). They do so in a very entertaining way, and as a result, a small percentage of viewers are inspired to participate more int he process, or at least educate themselves a little better.

And this is a good thing. But this book? It's not really for fans of the show...it's too academic and is quite a serious read. Ignore the subject matter...if your sphere of interest does not include media analysis, you probably won't find this a very enjoyable read. That it's written as an academic study (complete with in-line references) make it more tedious than it needs to be and will turn off those (like me) that might still have a casual interest in this sort of study.

This is one of the only books out there that is truly dedicated to "The Daily Show" (TDS) and "The Colbert Report" (TCS). This book takes a scholarly look at these two shows and if they contributed to the decline of political discourse (pg 4). The book is broken down into 2 major parts, each with 5 essays. The book is well organized and the preface & introduction really help the reader understand where this book is going to take them.

Since this book is taking a much more scholarly approach to examining what effect, if any, TDS and TCS have on politics and the political discourse of the nation, it is a bit dry. Each essayst really does attempt to prove their argument and I feel with 10 different small essays, it really gives the reader a good deep look into the two shows and the whole phenomenon.

This is a great book, however, I would only recommend it to readers who are truly interested in getting down to a more scholarly look at these two shows and how it is affecting the things around them. It can be somewhat dry at times and a slow read considering how small of a book it is, but I did feel that I learned more about the shows and their influence on the public and politics.½