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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWe're Learning More From Stephen Colbert Than The Actual News, Study Says
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/02/colbert-news-study-campaign-financing_n_5431713.htmlA recent study concluded that "The Colbert Report" did a better job of teaching people about campaign finance in the last presidential election than MSNBC, CNN, Fox News or broadcast evening news. The study published in Mass Communication and Society and led by a senior researcher at the University of Pennsylvania surveyed 1,232 adults and tested respondents' knowledge of campaign finance from a variety of sources.
"['The Colbert Report'] not only increased peoples perceptions that they knew more about political financing, but significantly increased their actual knowledge, and did so at a greater rate than other news sources," the university's Annenberg Public Policy Center wrote in a statement.
The study is not the first that concludes viewers of fake news shows like "The Colbert Report" are more informed than those of other news sources. In 2012, another study found that people who watch "The Daily Show" are more informed than people who watch Fox News.
We can add John Oliver to that list
progressoid
(50,008 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)so a lot of his potential audience is shut out.
progressoid
(50,008 posts)maddiemom
(5,106 posts)samples or later showings through other methods. It's the way I've followed Bill Mahr for years. Oliver's take on the Comcast/Time-Warner deal should become a classic. I'm still chuckling over "needing a babysitter and hiring a dingo."
Baitball Blogger
(46,775 posts)Start on minute 6:10 to see what he thinks about our conflicted FCC chairman and the monopolies in the cable industry.
http://time.com/2817567/john-oliver-net-neutrality-fcc/
phantom power
(25,966 posts)Better than half is local tragedies. Car crashes, fires, murders... It's tragic, none of it increases my understanding of the world. Any political reporting is filtered through the "both sides of the aisle" media auto-template they must all share. Again, it doesn't increase anybody's *understanding*. The closest thing to investigative reporting I ever see anymore is the kind where they send reporters to badger some local who is getting screwed by some company or other. Which at least is fighting on the side of the people, but again it doesn't call out any larger patterns of events.
It's all presented as just a bunch of stuff that happened. Any context or dot-connecting is studiously avoided.
Leme
(1,092 posts)-
but it does show where the media is at, some of the real stuff that is happening, just not much.
maddiemom
(5,106 posts)Then you could get the whole network feeds, uncut, for for the local 11 o'clock news broadcasts. It was quite enlightening in comparison to what was edited down for broadcast.
Uncle Joe
(58,482 posts)Thanks for the thread, lame54.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)hvn_nbr_2
(6,490 posts)Corporate media (CorpoPravda) is owned and controlled by the same billionaires who buy the government. They quite specifically do not want anyone to know or talk about campaign finance. To them, billionaires and billionaire corporations owning the government through campaign finance is "everything is right with the world." Why would they report that the sun shined, rain fell, grass grew, and gravity was still working?
daleanime
(17,796 posts)rickford66
(5,530 posts)lame54
(35,339 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)It's been that way since Laugh-In and Smothers Brothers. The comics can speak truth because Power doesn't dare intimidate them.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)..when the most insightful and informative political commentary is relegated to "The Comedy Channel".
This does NOT happen by accident.
....and add Jon Stewart to that list.