The term’s contradictory uses signal deeper worries about cultural fragmenting and algorithmic-induced flattening.
Articles on Stephen Colbert
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The greatest satirists do more than expose hypocrisy. They reshape how citizens understand power and civic responsibility.
In an online environment which blurs news and entertainment, Iran’s AI propaganda videos are reaching a huge audience globally.
The ‘equal time’ rule has been around for a century and aims to promote broadcasters’ editorial independence and free expression – an idea that is now under threat from the FCC.
President Nixon tried and failed to cancel ‘The Dick Cavett Show.’ Since then, deregulation and consolidation have made media conglomerates more willing to accommodate those in power.
The folktale, ‘The Bird Indifferent to Pain,’ offers insight into why audiences are drawn to the relentless jester – a comedic trope that has endured across cultures.
Programs geared toward liberals like ‘The Daily Show’ once held a monopoly on political comedy. Not so anymore.
Members of the key 18-to-34 demographic finds the format stale, the hosts unrelatable and the topics patronizing.
‘Two polar bears walk into a bar …’ is an unlikely opener for a joke, but memes and parodies are surprisingly effective ways to get people talking about climate change.
Documentaries are vital vehicles for explaining the world.
The UK needs more US-style political news satire. Sadly broadcast rules are making that difficult.
If people are starting to look much worse in democratic terms, trees are starting to look much better. We are learning that plants engage in meaningful and, more to the point, truthful communication.
In shedding the caricature of a conservative pundit, Colbert can have more substantive conversations with his guests, while still employing his unique brand of satire.
Jon Stewart’s Tuesday night announcement that he’ll be leaving the Daily Show garnered an audible cry of disbelief from his live studio audience. Stewart himself was visibly emotional: “What is this fluid…
If you were following politics over the last few election cycles, you were most likely getting some of your information from satire. In fact, research has shown that in today’s political climate, satire…
John Oliver’s new program Last Week Tonight is the most recent addition to the parody news genre. Like its predecessors, the show frequently mocks American politics; for example, an attention-grabbing…
The news that Jimmy Kimmel’s contract as host of ABC’s late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! is being extended for two years completes a period of upheaval in this great American genre. Jimmy Fallon…
What happens when an actor who has built an amazing persona is called upon to reveal a truer self? When Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report, discards his right-wing talk show host persona and takes…
A few years back, mock-conservative TV pundit Stephen Colbert famously introduced the notion of “truthiness” into the political lexicon. As Colbert put it, truthiness pertains not to whether beliefs are…
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Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature, Penn State
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Associate Professor in the Media School, Indiana University
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Centenary Professor, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra
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Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of St Andrews
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Associate Professor, Department of English and Cultural Studies, Bryant University
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Assistant researcher, University of Sydney
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Professor of International Relations, Australian National University
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Lecturer in Journalism, Swansea University
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Affiliated Faculty, Visual and Media Arts & Comedic Arts, Emerson College
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Professor of Environmental Studies and Fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder
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Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colorado State University
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Professor of Communication and International Studies, Boston College
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Professor of Communication, Boise State University
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Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Notre Dame
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Postdoctoral Fellow, Turku Institute for Advanced Studies & John Morton Center for North American Studies, University of Turku