53
How Satire Uses Viewer Vulnerability to Sway Undecided Voters Theresa Voyles
I
f you think back on recent election coverage, chances are that at least some of your memories of “news” coverage include satire. Maybe you recall The Daily Show’s coverage of the Florida governor’s race, John Oliver’s mockery of the GOP efforts to rebrand, or Stephen Colbert’s Twitter-mocking of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Maybe you read The Onion’s piece “Midterm Candidates Distancing Selves from United States.” This trend toward satirical reportage has been surging over the last few elections. It’s worth recalling that The Daily Show has gone on the road every two years either for coverage live from the Democrat and Republican conventions, or in midterm years, to locations they considered central to major races. They traveled to D.C. in 2002 and 2010, and visited the swing state of Ohio in 2006. On October 30, 2008 Stewart and Colbert held a pre-midterm rally on the National Mall that attracted over 200,000 people and 2.5 million live viewers. There have been some noteworthy satire moments in the last few elections: Who could forget the role that Colbert played in educating viewers on campaign finance by starting his own Super PAC, then encouraging his viewers to do the same? And then there was Tina Fey’s impersonation of Sarah Palin, which played a key role in drawing voters away from the McCain-Palin ticket. This also goes beyond the professional satirists: average citizens are tweeting, facebooking, snapchatting, and creating satirical memes that often go viral. Entire twitter accounts, for instance, are satirical. The Twitter feed for “Top Conservative Cat,” described as a “Colbert conservative,” has over 104,000 followers on Twitter. Satire has the ability to protect its creator from culpability for criticism, because it is implied rather than overtly stated; in this way, it becomes a powerful tool for dissenters in political and social periods. What better tool than satire exists for voicing criticisms in these unstable times? Satire is more alive today than ever before, finding outlets in literature, television, the internet, comics and cartoons. Messages that would be ignored or punished if overtly declared are reaching millions of people in satirical form, and making a real difference. It may be the most powerful tool that critics have to the world. In recent years, many people have begun using the blanket term “satire” to refer to any type of humor that involves ridicule, particularly of authority. For the purposes of this North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
paper, satire shall be defined as any piece, whether literary, artistic, spoken, or otherwise presented, which bears the following characteristics: 1. Critique. Satire is always a critique of some form of human behavior, vice, or folly, with the intent of persuading the audience to view it disdainfully and encourages a degree of social change by doing so. 2. Irony. Instead of an obvious statement, comedians are able to exaggerate their claim in the opposite direction. For example, Will Ferrel portrayed George W. Bush as loose and silly to contrast his characteristically stiff and robotic posture and mannerism. 3. Implicitness. Satire is not an overt statement, nor does it come to an explicit verdict. Rather, the critiqued behavior is highlighted within the satirical work by being obviously absurd, most often because it is exaggerated or taken out of its normal context. All in all, satire is a critique not stated openly, but hinted at with the primary intention of amusing an audience. As the 2016 Election Day looms, satirical news outlet, The Daily Show, ramped up its media coverage by heading to Texas for a week of shows entitled Democalypse 2014: South by South Mess. A Comedy Central show relocated to broadcast on-the-spot election coverage. That could strike us as strange, right? But really, it does not. The idea that a satire news show would take election coverage seriously does not come as a surprise. Why has satirical news become such a major player in news media? And, is its increased social power dangerous for our democracy? Does political satire really affect political outcomes? The answer is yes. The question then becomes who is affected by satire, as well as how, and how much?
I
n order to answer the question of the influence of satire in a democratic political system, one must understand who exactly is being influenced Of course, democracy is dependent on popular participation in government, so the only way political satire could affect political outcomes is to influence its audience (the people) enough to sway its political opinion. Needless to say, one might point out the obvious by claiming the people influenced by satirical media are the ones viewing them, but then, who are these viewers? Most are between the ages of 18 and 35, as some shows have over half of their viewers in this category (The Daily Show, 56%,
