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| Is Jon Stewart helping or hurting?
Two academics say the popular TV show host is breeding a cynical generation
May 21, 2006. 03:49 AM
ANDREW CHUNG
TORONTO STAR
Jon Stewart mines television clips as though they were sparkling gems, and he wields them like they were glinting daggers.
Last week, for instance, the popular comedian and host of The Daily Show replayed a series of public statements made by his favourite punching bag, U.S. President George W. Bush, promising the public that a controversial National Security Agency wiretap program was limited to international calls.
"This is not a program where we listen to calls inside the United States," Bush says in one clip.
"It's limited to calls from outside the United States to calls within the United States," he says in another.
You know what was coming next: Cut to Stewart telling delighted viewers that USA Today had just reported that, in fact, the agency is collecting data on billions of domestic U.S. calls with the help of major telephone companies.
"There is one specific type of domestic call the government was keeping tabs on," Stewart says with mock seriousness. "All of them."
Then, with a Bushian drawl, he lays out the president's fake defence: "We're not peeking in your daughter's window, or hiding in your back seat," he says to roars of laughter. "You can shower — we're not watching you shower."
Ouch.
Since taking over The Daily Show in 1999, Stewart's cut-the-crap humour and endless send-ups of politicians and the world they inhabit have made him a force to be reckoned with in American politics.
He has been on the cover of Newsweek and won Emmy awards. His U.S. audience has doubled in the last five years, to 1.3 million.
In Canada, his ratings are also on the rise, with 400,000 watching him on the Comedy Network and CTV, according to Nielsen Media Research.
But is his sarcasm turning those who watch him the most — young adults — into giant cynics with a diminishing trust in politicians and the institutions of democracy?
One new study, published this month in the journal American Politics Research, says yes. Reseachers have connected The Daily Show to lower opinions of politicians and greater cynicism toward the mainstream media and the electoral process itself.
At the same time, for reasons the study's authors propose are none too flattering, these same young people also figure themselves quite confident in their own knowledge about the complex world of politics.
"We are not saying The Daily Show is bad for democracy," says study co-author Jonathan Morris, an assistant professor at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. "I'm a fan of The Daily Show. I watch it very frequently.
"We're just pointing out that exposure to this show among young adults is associated with cynicism toward political candidates and the political process as a whole."
A spokesperson for the Comedy Central channel in the U.S., where the show is produced, said no one from the show would comment on the study.
The study was done before the 2004 presidential election. It chose college students as subjects, since young adults are the most avid watchers of The Daily Show, even as this age group increasingly ignores mainstream news.
That alienation from traditional news sources makes new research like this important, Morris says.
"This is the stage in life where young adults are picking up media habits and political-participation habits that will stay with them for the rest of their lives," he says.
"Cynicism has been linked to lower rates of political participation and engagement."
The researchers took three groups of students, exposing one group to a video montage from The Daily Show and another to a montage from the CBS Evening News.
The videos' subject matter was matched as closely as possible, including content about the two major presidential candidates, Bush (the Republican candidate) and Democrat John Kerry.
The third group served as a control and viewed neither clip.
Everyone was then given a questionnaire evaluating the candidates.
Watching The Daily Show, but not the CBS Evening News, led students to rate the candidates more negatively. The impact was more profound on those students who had had only limited previous experience with The Daily Show.
"That's important," says study co-author Jody Baumgartner, "because you could say this only affects a small segment of the population — but there's a large portion of the population who might occasionally tune in and on whom this has the greatest effect."
Other questions revealed that those who watched The Daily Show but not CBS had less trust in, and thus were more cynical toward, both the electoral process and the mainstream news media.
The questionnaires, including from those students who didn't watch either video, showed that The Daily Show's negative influence was much greater than that of other popular late-night programs, such as Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Why? The authors suggest it's because Stewart's show is more than just an extended monologue and focuses heavily on politics and poking fun at the major players. They say he presents politics as a kind of "theatre of the absurd."
Some skepticism of politicians or institutions is healthy in a democracy, they note, but cynicism can also lead to alienation from the political process.
The study also revealed that young people who watch The Daily Show, while more cynical, are less likely to agree with the statement, "Sometimes politics and government seem so complicated a person like me can't really understand them."
The authors didn't expect this finding. They postulate that it may not be due to any real depth of understanding but rather to Stewart's simplification of politics and to an association of any complexity to the incompetence of politicians.
Other research, however, has shown that viewers of The Daily Show are more knowledgeable about politics than non-viewers.
The show has also won two prestigious Peabody broadcasting awards for its election coverage. The Peabody board called it "the kind of cathartic satire that deflates pomposity on an equal-opportunity basis. Somehow this sharp commentary makes the real issues more important than ever."
Ausma Malik, a political science student at the University of Toronto, would agree with that.
Malik watches the show nearly every night because she finds it hilarious, and regularly discusses episodes with her friends.
"He makes light of the absurdities of the American political system and how it relates to things happening globally," she says.
The show's humour makes it accessible, and it's informative because, "though it's very funny, it's based on things that actually happen."
Malik, past-president of the political science students' association at U of T, doesn't buy the argument that the show spawns cynicism.
"Rather then being entirely responsible for changing attitudes, for the cynicism," she says, "something has to exist there that (the show) amplifies or heightens."
Things like the president and his officials saying the NSA isn't monitoring domestic phone calls when, in fact, it is. |
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