Stephen Harrington

The uses of satire: Unorthodox news, cultural chaos and the interrogation of power

This article focuses on the satirical Australian show The Chaser’s War on Everything, and uses it to critically assess the potential political and social ramifications of what McNair (2006) has called ‘cultural chaos’. Drawing upon and analysing several examples from this particular program, alongside interviews with its production team and qualitative audience research, this article argues that this TV show’s engagement with politicians and political issues, in a way that departs from the conventions of traditional journalism, offers a significant opportunity for the interrogation of power. The program’s use of often bizarre and unexpected comedic confrontation allows it to present a perhaps more authentic image of political agents than is often cultivated in mainstream journalism. This suggests therefore that the shift from homogeneity to heterogeneity in the news media – which McNair (2006) sees as a key feature of cultural chaos – presents a significant challenge to those who wish to retain control over what the public sees and understands about the political world, and is a development which should be viewed in positive terms.

Future-proofing journalism: Youthful tastes and the challenge for the academy

In current discourses about news and young people, there are two main trends. One is the focus on the youth audience’s apparent disinterest in the news, which is supposed evidence of their shallowness and lack of felt civic responsibility (see Buckingham 1999, 171). This is characterized as the seed of a societal malaise which gradually undermines the media’s important place in informing democracy. Despite the traditional news media’s many attempts to appeal to this demographic, academics still talk about them as ‘a generation that rejects news’ (Sternberg 2002, 308). The second, and more common, current of ‘pervasive pessimism’ (McNair 2000, 197) suggests that the media are the problem in the first place; that a casual drive downmarket in commercial news has distracted young people from ‘serious’ news. Both arguments paint a picture that younger generations consistently avoid engaging with the news at all costs, and are instead distracted by mindless entertainment, ‘reality’ television and celebrity gossip – the very things which allegedly have no value in the political economy. The typical extension of this logic is that young people, (unfairly) depicted as ‘the ultimate face of political apathy’ (McKee 2005, 184), represent a looming danger to the future of enlightened, informed public discourse. This picture of impending cultural demise is, however, one image that this paper seeks to repaint. Because the mainstream news agenda has largely alienated this audience group (Sternberg 2002; Evans and Sternberg 2000; Katz 1992, 1993), they are simply going elsewhere for their news, to sources which many will simply not accept as worthy or valid. It is not that young people are switching off the news (or do not care about staying informed, for that matter), but are instead switching over to forms of news that are more interesting and relevant to them. To illustrate this argument I will offer textual and qualitative evidence of this phenomenon, paying particular attention to research conducted into the Australian TV programme The Panel. While not wishing to overstate the originality of the assertions about young citizens and news media (as they have been made elsewhere by Buckingham 2000; Katz 1992; Sternberg 1998, 2004, among others), in this paper I argue that this trend (here further supported by qualitative evidence) does have important implications for the future of journalism as a profession, and therefore for journalism education in the academy.

From the “Little Aussie Bleeder” to Newstopia: (Really) Fake News in Australia

This article offers an overview of the key characteristics of “fake” news in the Australian national context. Focusing on two television shows, The Norman Gunston Show and Newstopia, it historicizes “fake” news within Australian television culture, situating it as part of a broader tradition of what Turner (1989) calls “Transgressive TV.” After analyzing the core comedic themes, styles, and intertextual relationships of both shows, the article concludes that, although news parody in Australia has tended to be highly fictionalized, it may nevertheless play a vital role in helping viewers better understand generic devices that frame and govern “real” television news.

WAKING UP WITH FRIENDS

This paper examines the Australian breakfast news program Sunrise. By drawing on interviews with both viewers and producers, as well as selected textual analysis, it examines the show, how it is “used” as a news source, and explores its role within the audiences morning routines. By viewing the show as a part of what Baym has termed the “Televisual Sphere”, it will argue against the common discourse that the program has simply followed a populist style in pursuit of higher ratings. Because of its success in communicating and connecting with viewers, it may be more constructive to consider Sunrise a very effective form of journalism which has been at the forefront of the recent trend towards increased levels of viewer input in television journalism.

Chasing Reporters: Intertextuality, Entertainment and Public Knowledge

This article examines ‘What Have We Learned From Current Affairs This Week?’ — a very successful weekly segment from the ABC program The Chasers War on Everything. It argues that, through its intertextual satire, this regular segment acts not as a traditional news program would in presenting news updates on current events, but as a text that reflects on the way news is reported, and how this in turn may shape public discourse. While the program has been highly controversial (enduring many a loud call for it to be pulled from air), this form of light entertainment can play an important public service by encouraging citizens to ‘read through’ (Gray, 2006: 104) commercial current affairs’ façade of ‘quality’ journalism.

Defining entertainment: an approach

Entertainment is a key cultural category. Yet the definition of entertainment can differ depending upon whom one asks. This article maps out understandings of entertainment in three key areas. Within industrial discourses, entertainment is defined by a commercial business model. Within evaluative discourses used by consumers and critics, it is understood through an aesthetic system that privileges emotional engagement, story, speed and vulgarity. Within academia, entertainment has not been a key organizing concept within the humanities, despite the fact that it is one of the central categories used by producers and consumers of culture. It has been important within psychology, where entertainment is understood in a solipsistic sense as being anything that an individual finds entertaining. Synthesizing these approaches, the authors propose a cross-sectoral definition of entertainment as ‘audience-centred commercial culture’.

Australian journalism studies after 'journalism': Breaking down the disciplinary boundaries (for good)

This article argues that if journalism is to remain a relevant and dynamic academic discipline, it must urgently reconsider the constrained, heavily policed boundaries traditionally placed around it – particularly in Australia. A simple way of achieving this is to redefine its primary object of study: away from specific, rigid, professional inputs towards an ever-growing range of media outputs. Such a shift may allow the discipline to freely reassess its pedagogical and epistemological relationships to contemporary news-making practices – or the ‘new’ news.

Top Gear, top journalism: Three lessons for political journalists from the world's most popular TV show

This article examines the BBC program Top Gear, discussing why it has become one of the worlds most-watched TV programs, and how it has very successfully captivated an audience who might otherwise not be particularly interested in cars. The analysis of the show is here framed in the form of three ‘lessons’ for journalists, suggesting that some of the entertaining (and highly engaging) ways in which Top Gear presents information to its viewers could be usefully applied in the coverage of politics – a domain of knowledge which, like cars, many citizens find abstract or boring. Its not hyperbole to suggest that when Jeremy [Clarkson] first appeared on old-style Top Gear, his style changed the face of modern motoring journalism. He did this by realizing that people were less interested in being told about a cars valve timing, compression ratios and tyre sizes than they were in knowing (a) whether said car would improve their general quality of life and (b) whether being seen driving one would make attractive people want to sleep with them. When Top Gear returned in 2002, the show took this philosophy, added rocket-boosters and ran with it. The rest, as they say, is history. British Broadcasting Corporation n.d.

What if ‘journalism’ is the problem?: Entertainment and the ‘de-mediatization’ of politics

The ‘lines’ between news and entertainment have been blurring for many decades now. Many have bemoaned their interplay, citing the ‘trivialization’ of modern political discourse as a clear negative effect. Others have been more optimistic, although typically tend to posit ‘traditional’ journalism as a preferential mode of analysis. In this chapter, however, I argue that journalism’s homogeneity, its dedication to objectivity, timeliness, brevity and dependency on ‘access’ to political actors, have left it highly vulnerable to exploitation by political strategists. Factual entertainment which breaks from the journalistic mould can, therefore, do a much better job of scrutinizing political power than it is typically given credit for.

Fluff, Frivolity, and the Fabulous Samantha Jones: Representations of Public Relations in Entertainment

Public relations (PR) plays a significant role in the modern media landscape, with its size and influence having grown significantly over the last 30 years. It functions primarily to manage information, image, and stakeholder relationships; however, PR is a discreet occupation that largely operates out of the public eye and is often considered most successful when it is ‘invisible’. In this chapter, using Sex and The City as a case study, we argue fictional entertainment provides critical insight into public relations as a profession and as a practice. We explore how such representations reflect and refract audience understandings about PR, and how this in turn impacts the role and reputation of PR in our society.