NationStates Jolt Archive

Satire, I feel, is a wonderful thing. I'm a great fan of the Now show, Have I got news for you, Yes Minister etc. However I feel that in the modern climate satire has been fueling a problem the public has with understanding politics. That is with the continuing fusion of entertainment and infomation, all people are hearing is stories that are 'funny' about the governments misfortunes. There are two angles of this fusion. One is with people not wishing to be educated by what they watch as much as they wish to be entertained. So they will watch programs such as Have I got news for you etc with an eye for being entertained, but also they will be educated in the same process. So it then becomes one of their principle sources of news. The other side of it is the news companies, who in having to deal with this fusion, try to make the news itself more entertaining by filling it with more shocking stories and in some cases more entertaining ones. As a result, people are now seeing the political arena in the light of all the politicans being hopeless idiots. This is not true generally speeking. These people are often very highly educated and intellegent. Yes they make mistakes but then so does everyone. While I am not saying that that excuses their mistakes, what I am saying is that it does seem that people mock politicans just on the grounds of their postion. If you were to have a group of highly respected and admired intellectuals who were not politicans suddenly running for office of some kind you would find their respect and admiriation go out the window I suspect. Not because of their own actions, but because of the office they are trying to run for. Satire is helping create an enviroment where politicans are, simply by being politicans, foolish and incompetent. While it has always been true with the media that 'no news is good news' and that the media will always report on the bad in the world, satire and other things have made the situation somewhat worse. This is not a call to end satire in all places, it is simply a call to take it less seriously. Yes it is funny, it is often very funny, but don't take it as really serious political commentary.

Satire has always been misunderstood to some extent. People used to be put in the pillory for it if they weren't careful.

If you're bothered about the 'shocking' news stories some broadcasters run with, stop watching ITV news. Someone said in the 'most trusted news source' thread that it's the television news equivalent of the Daily Mail, and they're right. The BBC rarely does the same thing - it is, for the most part, impartial, and so doesn't run 'shocking' stories. It reports the truth, or as close to the truth as possible.

It's not really the fault of satire, though. People who watch it and use it as their main news source are simply being ignorant. News broadcasters, whose main job is to attract viewers, will then run stories that the majority of people agree with, because people simply don't like their views being challenged. However, this is a vicious circle, as the more people see their own views reflected on tv, the more they will believe it to be true (in this case, that politicians are foolish and incompetent).

And please write in paragraphs.

I think that you've got it back to front; it isn't that satire makes people think ministers are incompetent, but that our elected representitives are so self-interested, corrupt and incompetent that satire is inevitable and unavoidable.

I think that you've got it back to front; it isn't that satire makes people think ministers are incompetent, but that our elected representitives are so self-interested, corrupt and incompetent that satire is inevitable and unavoidable.
I'd say that's wrong. There will always be some level of self-interest and incompetence - politicians are human just like us (honest). The whole point of satire is that it magnifies the negatives while ignoring the positives, but the majority of people don't realise this and so assume that there are only negatives and no positives.

You make the mistake of thinking this is a recent trend. People have always hated politicians, depicted them as being incompetant wastes of space, and disagreed with many, if not all of their policies. Its just easier to communicate these things to people now so opposing points of view are more noticable.

If weren't for 'Have I Got News For You' I would never get to know about all the interesting stories that Crossstich Weekly runs.

I don't believe it is satire that is the problem, I believe it IS the self-interest of politicians. Satire is just a rather good remedy for the depression that politics causes.

I'd say that's wrong. There will always be some level of self-interest and incompetence - politicians are human just like us (honest). The whole point of satire is that it magnifies the negatives while ignoring the positives, but the majority of people don't realise this and so assume that there are only negatives and no positives.
I'm not so sure. Firstly, everyone knows politicians are mostly shape-changing lizards.
Secondly, I'm mostly indifferent to politics, but I keep my eye on it and there are some issues on which I have opinions. Of these issues the only one that I've agreed with our Overlord(s) on is nuclear power being good. The others the government acts on in manners consistent with self-interest, spite, or simply makes knee-jerk reactions. Coupled with scandals such as selling peerages and incompetencies like losing prisoners there's no wonder that Have I Got News For You is about the funniest thing on telly...

I think HIGNFY is losing its edge, Ian Hislop just seems like a grumpy old man, Paul Merton can no longer pull off being 'the anarchic one' and episodes suffer whenever they don't have a decent chair.

But on the subject on satire, it is important in eroding the reverence for politicians which is so dangerous to democracy. But at the same time, as satire becomes more cutting, politicians become increasingly obsessed with not looking like fools, adding to the situation where spin is even more all pervasive, and politics becomes blander and more elite.

Someone said in the 'most trusted news source' thread that it's the television news equivalent of the Daily Mail, and they're right. The BBC rarely does the same thing - it is, for the most part, impartial, and so doesn't run 'shocking' stories. It reports the truth, or as close to the truth as possible.


This is a joke of some kind surely?

*Cough* (http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/28/comedy.politics/)

You make the mistake of thinking this is a recent trend. People have always hated politicians, depicted them as being incompetant wastes of space, and disagreed with many, if not all of their policies. Its just easier to communicate these things to people now so opposing points of view are more noticable.

Right - one of the greatest political satirists was Aristophanes - his plays mocking war, greed and political corruption are still relevant.

Just a tip: paragraphs really help when your post is that long. My eyes quit after the first sentence, it just looked too intimidating.