The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report have attracted much interest in recent years from popular audiences as well as scholars in various disciplines. Both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have been named on Time magazine's list of the most influential people in the world. The ten essays in this interdisciplinary collection explore the issues engendered by the popularity of entertainment news, including the role of satire in politics, the declining level of trust in traditional sources of media, the shows' cathartic or informational function, and the ways in which these shows influence public opinion. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

In this book, Curt Hersey explores the history of U.S. media, demonstrating how news parody has entertained television audiences by satirizing political and social issues and offering a lighthearted take on broadcast news. Despite shifts away from broadcast and cable delivery, comedians like Samantha Bee, Michael Che, and John Oliver continue this tradition of delivering topical humor within a newscast format. In this history of the television news parody genre, Hersey critically engages with the norms and presentational styles of television journalism at the time of their production. News parody has increasingly become part of the larger journalistic field, with viewers often turning to this parodic programming as a supplement and corrective to mainstream news sources. Beginning in the 1960s with the NBC program That Was the Week That Was, the history of news parody is analyzed decade by decade by focusing on presidential and political coverage, as well as the genre’s critiques of television network and cable journalism. Case studies include Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update;” HBO’s Not Necessarily the News; Comedy Central’s original Daily Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report; and HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Scholars of media history, political communication, and popular culture will find this book particularly useful.

Does late night political humor matter? Are late-night comedians merely entertaining, or do they have the power to influence the way we think about politics and politicians? Politics Is a Joke! situates late night comedy in the historical context of political humor and demonstrates how the public turn to this venue for political information, and are in turn affected by it. Using exclusive data collected by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, the authors conduct a detailed and exhaustive analysis of political jokes on late night TV shows dating back to 1992 in order to pinpoint the main targets and themes of late-night comedy. Politics Is a Joke! uses a wide range of examples, from jokes about politicians' physical appearance and sex scandals to jokes about Congress and even the news media, to assess and understand the impact of political humor on political institutions, politicians and their policies and behavior. Engagingly written with analysis of jokes from comedians like Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Politics is a Joke! is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the crucial role late night comedy plays in our political universe - and anyone who enjoys a good laugh.

Stephen Colbert is far more than a comedian and improv genius. As head of his fanciful Colbert Nation, the quick-witted host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report has delighted fans with his wit, audacity, and innovative uses of language and the media. In this biography, award-winning journalist Bruce Watson, author of Jon Stewart: Beyond the Moments of Zen, charts Colbert's rise from boyhood tragedy to "greatest living cultural/media critic."

Viewpoints on Media Effects: Pseudo-reality and Its Influence on Media Consumers continues the ongoing research of media effects by illuminating not only the negative effects of media consumption, but also some of the pro-social aspects, with a special focus on social media. Recommended for scholars and researchers with an interest in media studies, specifically the exploration of media effects in various media. Also relevant scholars and researchers within the fields of communication studies, English, education, and sociology.

The Routledge Comedy Studies Reader is a selection of the most outstanding critical analysis featured in the journal Comedy Studies in the decade since its inception in 2010. The Reader illustrates the multiple perspectives that are available when analysing comedy. Wilkie’s selections present an array of critical approaches from interdisciplinary scholars, all of whom evaluate comedy from different angles and adopt a range of writing styles to explore the phenomenon. Divided into eight unique parts, the Reader offers both breadth and depth with its wide range of interdisciplinary articles and international perspectives. Of interest to students, scholars, and lovers of comedy alike, The Routledge Comedy Studies Reader offers a contemporary sample of general analyses of comedy as a mode, form, and genre.

This volume provides a comprehensive discussion of enduring and emerging challenges to ethical journalism worldwide. The collection highlights journalism practice that makes a positive contribution to people’s lives, investigates the link between institutional power and ethical practices in journalism, and explores the relationship between ethical standards and journalistic practice. Chapters in the volume represent three key commitments: (1) ensuring practice informed by theory, (2) providing professional guidance to journalists, and (3) offering an expanded worldview that examines journalism ethics beyond traditional boundaries and borders. With input from over 60 expert contributors, it offers a global perspective on journalism ethics and embraces ideas from well-known and emerging journalism scholars and practitioners from around the world. The Routledge Companion to Journalism Ethics serves as a one-stop shop for journalism ethics scholars and students as well as industry practitioners and experts.

This book examines perhaps the most contentious election in modern US history—the 2016 United States presidential election. It is unique in its discussion of a wide range of issues affecting the news media coverage of the election, coming from an equally diverse range of intellectual perspectives including the rhetorical, social-scientific, communication studies, and media studies. With eleven chapters grounded in hard evidence and communication theory, The 2016 American Presidential Campaign and the News: Implications for American Democracy and the Republic examines significant topics such as fake news, media construction of Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s campaign personalities, media bias, visual meme depictions of the candidates, identity politics in the news, Trump’s Twitter use, entertainment news, and social media as news. These chapters individually and collectively provide a direct commentary on the implications of the 2016 campaign news coverage for the future of the American Republic and political communication in the media.

Media education for digital citizenship is predicated upon the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and produce media content and communication in a variety of forms. While many media literacy approaches overemphasize the end-goal of accessing digital media content through the acquisition of various technology, software, apps and analytics, this book argues that the goals for comprehensive and critical digital literacy require grasping the means through which communication is created, deployed, used, and shared, regardless of which tools or platforms are used for meaning making and social interaction. Drawing upon the intersecting matrices of digital literacy and media literacy, the volume provides a framework for developing critical digital literacies by exploring the necessary skills and competencies for engaging students as citizens of the digital world.

In the past decade various studies have examined how political humor may influence various political attitudes and voting behavior; whether it affects learning, cognition and media literacy, how it might shape political participation; how people process different forms of political humor; and more. This book is devoted to anticipating and addressing where the field of political humor and its effects will move in the next generation of scholarship, exploring the continued evolution of the study of political humor as well as the normative implications of these developments. It includes research accounting for important changes and developments "on the ground" in the political humor landscape. These include the fact that the cadre of late-night television hosts have completely changed in the past 3 years; there are now more late night television choices; and many hosts have become more overtly political in their presentations. Recommended for scholars of communication, media studies, and political science.