Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
If you think it's wrong for Fox to consider using comedy in the same manner, then don't you *first* have to acknowledge that other networks are already doing this (and that it's equally wrong)?
Umm... no?
I was asking why your argument for FOX doing so was
"That a ridiculous percentage of people apparently are most influenced politically by comedy shows parodying politics in the first place". Implying that FOX is out to politically motivate people and is upset that some show on Comedy Central is having more luck at it than they are.
No. More that Fox is a News channel. They also cover a lot of political issues. The trend we've seen recently is that an alarming number of people are forming their political views, not based on actual political debate between people knowledgeable on the subjects (like they actually show on Fox news), but on comedy skits performed on shows like TDS by comedians with minimal understanding of the issues they're parodying.
You're interpreting "influenced" to mean "influenced to a particular viewpoint". That's not how I meant it, but you obviously seem to think that's what's going on, hence my point about TDS. If Fox using comedy to address political issues would be "wrongly influencing" people, then isn't TDS *already* doing that?
What exactly is "wrongly influenced"? Is it only when someone is presented a Conservative viewpoint? Because apparently the overwhelmingly Liberal slant of TDS doesn't bother you, but the assuption that a Fox version might be Conservatively slanted does. Isn't that a huge bias on your own parts?
My original point was that we're already seeing shows like TDS influencing how people view political issues. Need I point out the network neutrality thread in which the entire starting argument in the OP was a link to a clip from TDS parodying the subject? Need I also point out the increased rate at which posters present their arguments, not by stating them, but by simply linking to some video clip of someone else stating a position (and often in a comedic or parodying fashion).
We can debate the rightness or wrongness of this all day long. But the fact is that many people have short attention spans and gather more "information" about an issue via short video clips and comedy skits then they do by wacthing or listening to people actually discussing the issues in any sort of intelligent fashion. Heck. Watch Bill Maher's show sometime. It's telling what parts of the show get the most reaction. It's not the rare intelligent comment. It's always the clever one-liners.
And that style of presentation is almost exclusively liberaly biased. So yeah. If Fox wants to see if they can do something similar to tip the scales back a bit, what's wrong with that?
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I mean, if TDS and Colbert aired on CNN or something, you might have a point. This is a news network trying to out compete a comedy channel because they feel threatened.
Which would be true if it wasn't for the sad fact that so many people get their political views from a comedy channel. See my original point Joph? You're basically saying it's perfectly ok to have politics on a comedy network, but it's not ok to have comedy on a political network?
Why not?
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I don't really care if FOX has a comedy program except to mock them for tacitly admitting that a couple comedians are out-performing the FOX pundits by mocking the government.
We have a society with a short attention span Joph. People who would never tune in to a political show will watch a comedy show and not realize that they're being presented with a political argument. But they are. And they have been for years. I've argued the whole "Jon Stewart is shaping people's politics" for years now. It's not exactly hard to spot. I've been debating politics on this forum for years now. It's pretty obvious when the day after Jon does a particular parody that same topic pops up on this forum and is discussed, typically chock full of assumptions based on the parody and virtually void of any actual knowledge of the subject itself. This has happened far too many times for me to think it's just coincidence. Clearly, comedy is a strong forum for presenting political information.
Having said that, I'll toss my hat in the ring and say that I'm also somewhat opposed to it. While I do think it's "unfair" that comedy shows seem to have such a strong influence and are so blatantly biased in one political direction. I don't think that it's the politics that's specifically doing it. It's the positions themselves. Let's face it, Liberal arguments lends themselves to comedic support more easily then Conservative ones do.
Liberals tend to approach politics by looking at what's broken. Conservatives tend to approach politics by looking at what's working. It's far easier (and funnier) to make jokes about things not working then things that are. It's a lot easier to turn a comedic approach to a political subject into a call for action/change, then into a "stay the course" type position. People "get" that when you make fun of the way something is, that obviously it should be changed. And that easily translates into voting/supporting candidates and policies that enact change. It's easy to tie rhetoric into the jokes too. And it's easy to get people to vote for candidates who've not presented a single fact about their agenda if you can instead get them to repeat key phrases that tie into the comedic messages that the public has already been primed and programed to respond to.
The political landscape of the Left is littered with such things. From "mission accomplished" to "stay the course". In all cases, the approach is earily similar. Attach a clever sounding phrase to some practice in place right now (by the "evil" Republicans no less!). Make comdedy skits parodying those things. Repeat clever phrase often and loudly so that everyone is "in" on the joke that you're saying. End result? The guy repeating the phrase appears to be intelligent and clever. He gets votes and support. He never actually has to present any real political position himself.
It's democracy gone horribly awry IMO. And I don't think FOX should be getting into it (and I don't think it'll work as a format anyway). My main point is that it's amusing that several people seem so automatically opposed to Fox doing this, yet seem perfectly ok with other networks employing it when it's going in a percieved political direction they agree with. Double standard? Yup. IMO, this is a horrible political methodology. Period. I was *hoping* that some of you might apply the same opposition you'd have to Fox doing this to realizing that this is equally wrong when used by anyone. Apparently, that's too much of a stretch...
