Joanna Doona
Studierektor för grundutbildningen
High stakes! Political comedy audiences and political engagement
Författare
Summary, in English
Political comedy in various forms is increasingly popular among media audiences, directing scholarly attention to issues like shifting news habits and values, and further, potential impacts on civic cultures. But with the exception of media effects studies, audiences of political com-edy remain largely under-researched (Marchi 2012; Jones 2013).
This paper deals with young adult audiences of political comedy, and their political engage-ment. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of cultural citizenship (Hermes 2005) and civic cultures (Dahlgren 2009), as well as the growing scholarly discussions on engagement, emo-tions and affect (cf. Coleman 2013; Papacharissi 2015), the goal is to create a more compre-hensive understanding of political engagement, and political comedy.
By analysing qualitative interview and focus group data (with Swedish young 18-35 year-old audiences of political comedy; either the Swedish public service radio programme Tankesmedjan or popular American The Daily Show with Jon Stewart), the paper shows how these audiences are tuned into, interested in and, arguably, engaged in various ways, both in the political comedy itself, and the political issues it covers. The contradiction is that this en-gagement all too often seems coupled with a fear of, or pessimism towards, creating actual political change, or even making one’s voice heard. This in turn seems to be linked to a hyper-awareness of the self (cf. Senft 2013), as well as an extensive knowledge of the actual prob-lems facing western democracy today, quite like what Coleman calls “a consciousness of lack-ing the means required to exercise political power” (2013:229) – and reiterating the need for more scholarly attention towards what he calls the “affective deficit” (ibid.).
This paper deals with young adult audiences of political comedy, and their political engage-ment. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of cultural citizenship (Hermes 2005) and civic cultures (Dahlgren 2009), as well as the growing scholarly discussions on engagement, emo-tions and affect (cf. Coleman 2013; Papacharissi 2015), the goal is to create a more compre-hensive understanding of political engagement, and political comedy.
By analysing qualitative interview and focus group data (with Swedish young 18-35 year-old audiences of political comedy; either the Swedish public service radio programme Tankesmedjan or popular American The Daily Show with Jon Stewart), the paper shows how these audiences are tuned into, interested in and, arguably, engaged in various ways, both in the political comedy itself, and the political issues it covers. The contradiction is that this en-gagement all too often seems coupled with a fear of, or pessimism towards, creating actual political change, or even making one’s voice heard. This in turn seems to be linked to a hyper-awareness of the self (cf. Senft 2013), as well as an extensive knowledge of the actual prob-lems facing western democracy today, quite like what Coleman calls “a consciousness of lack-ing the means required to exercise political power” (2013:229) – and reiterating the need for more scholarly attention towards what he calls the “affective deficit” (ibid.).
Avdelning/ar
- Media and Communication Studies
Publiceringsår
2015
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
86-86
Länkar
Dokumenttyp
Konferensbidrag: abstract
Ämne
- Media and Communications
Conference name
ECREA - Communication and Democracy Conference
Conference date
2015-10-09 - 2015-10-10
Conference place
Copenhagen, Denmark
Aktiv
Published