In Italy, a few years ago, the censorship of a satirical program called RAI8 (Riot) and of many other satirical programs, which were broadcast on the public television RAI and which criticized the Prime Minister Berlusconi, has brought about a debate on satire as a genre.
Berlusconi, who owns most of the press, the private televisions, and controls the public ones for being head of the government, did not approve the fact that some rumors concerning his past would be exposed to the public attention and sued those who accused him of corruption for label as they could influence his electorate in a negative way and create a climate of tension and discontent in the whole society. He said that the facts exposed were not true, could not be proved and were just meant to damage him.
As a consequence, these programs have been censored, the journalists fired and the only way to see them is on You Tube. A comedian made a documentary about all these happenings that is also available on youtube.
In my opinion these programs should not have been cernsored because they were meant to be the expression of the opinions of Berlusconi's opponants, and people were aware of it. Moreover, even if the facts they exposed could not be proved by documents, the existence of rumors concerning them is widely known by the Italian public. On top of that, many of the satirical remarks adrressed to Berlusconi were about the fact that he controls the media, which is a matter of fact.
Satire is a very ancient genre. Public opinion in the Athenian democracy was remarkably influenced by the political satire written by such poets as Aristophanes for the theatre. His plays are known for their critical political and social commentary, particularly for the political satire by which he criticized the powerful Cleon (as in The Knights).
The characteristic that defines satire as a genre is the use of humor and sarcasm in order to expose facts concerning politics and social issues that the author disapproves, with the ultimate intent to make people aware of them.
Because saying these facts often meant exposing the misconduct of people in power they would lead to consequences if stated in a direct way. For these reasons they were usually brought about by intellectuals who assumed the status of buffoons in order to get impunity for their presupposed madness and who would use irony to make people infer what they were referring to. As a consequence, satirical irony usually does not have the purpose of entertaining people, but to expose in an indirect way facts that would otherwise be liable to censorship.
Moreover, satire is obviously meant to be partisan: it is the opinion of a person, and for this reason cannot be objective. It is meant to be an opinion that differs from the dominant one so that people would question the fact that the dominant one represents the truth and ask who is in power for clarifications and material proofs of what they say.
Many of the Prime Minister’s supporters would criticize these kind of satirical programs by saying that they did not make them laugh at all, and that it was not satire. And they would give as examples of good satire certain programs broadcast by Berlusconi’s TV such as the mock news called 'Striscia La Notizia', that makes fun indeed of the Prime Minister and also unveal various kinds of scandalous facts, making people laugh at the same time. They said that satire has the function of 'making politicians look more human, more appealing and releave social tension' and that 'satire cannot influence public opinion'.
I believe that this kind of program belongs to what the Nobel Laureate Dario Fo in the video calls 'sfottò' as opposed to satire, which is just making fun of someone without mentioning substancial facts and having as a consequence that of making this person look more human.
The mock news Striscia La Notizia are an example of how it is possible to manipulate people by use of ‘genres mixing’.
Swales characterizes a genre as "a class of communicative events" having "a shared set of communicative purposes" and similar structures, stylistic features, content and intended audiences. In addition, Swales notes that a genre is usually named and recognized by members of the culture in which it is found. Because the matching of specific structure and specific purposes of genres is perceived by people as natural, as ‘common sense’, it is easy to mislead them on the purpose of a communicative event whose structure correspond to that of a precise genre. Striscia la Notizia has got all the characteristics of satire, even the intensity of the invective. However, is its purpose that of exposing facts which have political relevance in order to raise the awareness of Italian people and make of them an informed electorate?
There is an easy way to prove that its purpose is not that of exposing relevant facts: the facts that it deals with are completely irrelevant. While the Prime Minister is making laws for its own economical interest, this mock news program makes satire of facts such as the one shown in this You tube video. The owner of a bar in Rome is making tourists pay 1 euro more than local people for a coffee.
The real purpose of this program is that of distracting people from the substantial facts that are happening in the country and make them believe that such a piece of news is the most relevant and outrageous they could get with such an effective government in power.
Moreover, the fact that Striscia La Notizia is a source of entertainment, as it makes people laugh, makes of it part of Berlusconi’s use of entertainment as a form of manipulation. Since he was elected in power, not only his private channels, but also public TV, are completely based on entertainment. No issues that could lead to people to discussing and debating are shown on TV. What Italians are exposed to are only semi naked women (as in Striscia La Notizia, which is broadcast at 8 pm and also meant to be for children, who love the red character called Gabibbo!) and gossip.
Entertainment is one of his most powerful instruments Berlusconi is using to keep people satisfied and completely unaware of his past and present policies. Berlusconi knows well how entertainment can be a powerful tool for getting consent: how denying a vote or consent to that person who provides me with such a good entertainment so that I can forget about my financial problems and relax?
Saturday, February 28, 2009
February 27, 2009
Post n.1 (of my own choice)
On Thursday February 26 President Obama proposed a 10-year budget in a document entitled “A New Era of Responsibilities”. I am going to analyze the way the different parts of the budget are prioritized, first of all by foreign on-line news such as BBC and TV5, and then by American on-line news such as CNN and Fox News. The President himself in his speech on February 24 mentioned his priorities in the order recalled by the document itself: green energy, health care, education, military expenditures. The priorities are also, even though only partly, reflected in the money the President put into each sector.
The French channel TV5 started by announcing that the military budget of the USA is going to increase only by 1.5 %. Nothing to do with the 4 or 5%of the Bush administration. Then they said that President Obama is going to announce the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Then they went on discussing the details of the budget starting by stressing the huge expenditure of $3.6 trillion which caused many critics by the Republicans. Then they mentioned that the president is going to cut the expenditures during his mandate. The various parts were dealt, thus, in the following order: military expenditure, health care and green energy. The analysis I found on the BBC started by mentioning the cutting of tax for business, then the elimination of money for weapons which are enormously expensive but kept high because they are in the interest of certain groups, then the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
On CNN I could find many videos on the speech given by President Obama on Tuesday and many video commenting on his budget. Among them there was one called ‘Obama’s budget’ where David Gergen mentioned first health care and clean energy. The discussion focused on the huge amount of expenditure of the budget. The following video was called ‘Fighter jet or fight for jobs’ which discusses the fact that many Congressmen are in favor of keeping the military expenditure high in order to keep and create new jobs. The reporter argues that jobs would not be lost since people would simply be moved to other projects. They mention a study by the University of Massachusetts that showed how info-structures, mass transit and education all generate more jobs than military spending.
On Fox News I found a video which reported the comments on the budget made by Mitt Romney in an episode of Hannity. Because Fox News is channel that supports the ideas of the Republicans, he strongly criticized the amount of expenditure proposed by President Obama, that he defined as ‘unstoppable, uncontrollable, unbridled and unfounded’. He mentioned health care first, than bail out for banks, then tax hikes and education among the President’s priorities. He did not mention military spending.
To conclude, I found very interesting to check various sources of news, and I believe that this is a good way to get more information. However, the information I got answered many questions, but above all, raised many questions in my mind, which may seem naïve and superficial, but that I had never thought about before. In particular, I asked myself the following question, with which I conclude: are the weapons the USA sell abroad (and they are the main part of the ones that can be found on the global market) designed and produced with the same tax payers money that are used for the ‘defense’ expenditure?
Post n.1 (of my own choice)
On Thursday February 26 President Obama proposed a 10-year budget in a document entitled “A New Era of Responsibilities”. I am going to analyze the way the different parts of the budget are prioritized, first of all by foreign on-line news such as BBC and TV5, and then by American on-line news such as CNN and Fox News. The President himself in his speech on February 24 mentioned his priorities in the order recalled by the document itself: green energy, health care, education, military expenditures. The priorities are also, even though only partly, reflected in the money the President put into each sector.
The French channel TV5 started by announcing that the military budget of the USA is going to increase only by 1.5 %. Nothing to do with the 4 or 5%of the Bush administration. Then they said that President Obama is going to announce the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Then they went on discussing the details of the budget starting by stressing the huge expenditure of $3.6 trillion which caused many critics by the Republicans. Then they mentioned that the president is going to cut the expenditures during his mandate. The various parts were dealt, thus, in the following order: military expenditure, health care and green energy. The analysis I found on the BBC started by mentioning the cutting of tax for business, then the elimination of money for weapons which are enormously expensive but kept high because they are in the interest of certain groups, then the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
On CNN I could find many videos on the speech given by President Obama on Tuesday and many video commenting on his budget. Among them there was one called ‘Obama’s budget’ where David Gergen mentioned first health care and clean energy. The discussion focused on the huge amount of expenditure of the budget. The following video was called ‘Fighter jet or fight for jobs’ which discusses the fact that many Congressmen are in favor of keeping the military expenditure high in order to keep and create new jobs. The reporter argues that jobs would not be lost since people would simply be moved to other projects. They mention a study by the University of Massachusetts that showed how info-structures, mass transit and education all generate more jobs than military spending.
On Fox News I found a video which reported the comments on the budget made by Mitt Romney in an episode of Hannity. Because Fox News is channel that supports the ideas of the Republicans, he strongly criticized the amount of expenditure proposed by President Obama, that he defined as ‘unstoppable, uncontrollable, unbridled and unfounded’. He mentioned health care first, than bail out for banks, then tax hikes and education among the President’s priorities. He did not mention military spending.
To conclude, I found very interesting to check various sources of news, and I believe that this is a good way to get more information. However, the information I got answered many questions, but above all, raised many questions in my mind, which may seem naïve and superficial, but that I had never thought about before. In particular, I asked myself the following question, with which I conclude: are the weapons the USA sell abroad (and they are the main part of the ones that can be found on the global market) designed and produced with the same tax payers money that are used for the ‘defense’ expenditure?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
first blog
My name is Maria. I am taking Politics and Media at Ramapo College of New Jersey with Professor McKenna.
http://ramapo.edu
http://ramapo.edu
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