In our world this is necessary as ever before, as discourse has become very powerful, because it is amplyfied by the mass media, and not very diverse, because the mass media are more and more concentrated in the hands of very few rich and powerful people. For this reason common people need more and more to be reminded of how powerful, dangerous and misleading words are. We need to be constantly reminded that words are often said by someone who would like to pursuit some private purposes, which might not be beneficial for us by the same degree.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| In Cramer We Trust | ||||
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The criticism that Jon Stewart addresses to the media industry in his program called The Daily Show is very interesting. In the episode of March 9 he criticized a financial analyst for giving false information to investors causing them to lose their money. Then he made a satirical report of the speech given by the English prime minister Gordon Brown during his visit to the USA. He laughed at him praising the USA and said a joke on him encouraging the USA to ‘invade the subcontinent’. Then he laughed at Brown copying Obama’s words in trying to imitate his discourse (and I believe Berlusconi is there trying to study the new rhetorical tricks coming from the USA to imitate them so that the Italian audiences can benefit from them too). This was a very good criticism of political discourse in general and of how politicians make use of standardized patterns of discourse that don't have anything to do with real facts just to seduce people. He said that Brown was copying Obama’s song just like a cover band would do.
Then, when talking about the gift exchanges between Brown and Obama, he laughed at the fact that Obama gave Brown DVDs, hinting at the role that Hollywood has had in making the USA discourse accepted worldwide (in spite of all the wars, weapons sales and so on) through the power of entertainment.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Brown in the USA | ||||
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The satire of political discourse done by Jon Stewart is a good way to remind people that they should pay less attention to words and more to facts when it comes to politics. I find it very beneficial that Stuart laughs very often at the way Obama is seducing American people with his words just like a play boy would do with a woman. Because it is important for people to ask their politicians more than beautiful words.
However, it is also important to take into account that laughing at important and delicate matters such as politics in such a light way could not be very beneficial, because it could make people accept them just as something to laugh about and not as something to take into account seriously. That is good when it comes to politicians' words, but not when it comes to important political matters which can have nasty consequences such as people dying.
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