The Problem with Being Joe Biden: Political Comedy and Circulating Personae (original) (raw)

POLITICAL PERSONA 2016—AN INTRODUCTION

This introductory essay situates the research into political persona that has emerged from a number of fields including political communication, political marketing, celebrity politics and political biography. It develops the thesis that contemporary political personas identify the breakdown of the political Leviathan that has been dependent on the close cross-legitimacy of legacy media and legacy politics. What is emerging via online culture is a presentational media and cultural regime that is making the presentational media and cultural regime unstable. The essay makes the claim that the political personas such as Donald Trump and the political instability partially driven by the pandemic political personas and activity in online culture that led to Brexit in 2016 are connected to this emerging presentational media and cultural regime.

Satirical Visions with Public Consequence?: Dennis Miller’s Ranting Rhetorical Persona

As a political comedian, Dennis Miller has been a staple figure in American public discourse across the last two decades. This essay identifies and evaluates Miller"s ranting rhetorical persona, and examines comic texts produced by Miller before and after his political conversion, exploring the ways in which his politics may influence his satire. Using a distinctive methodological approach for humor research, I find there are more similarities than differences in Miller"s discourse over time, and that some elements of Miller"s post-conversion rhetoric may demonstrate a conservative satire. Ultimately, it is argued that Miller"s ranting rhetorical vision holds paradoxical promise for the public sphere and political engagement. These findings have several implications for our understanding of comic advocacy in politics.

Public Engagement, Propaganda, or Both? Attitudes Toward Politicians on Political Satire and Comedy Programs

2017

This article reports findings of a project that examined people’s attitudes toward politicians who participate in political satire and comedy programs. It surveyed 489 participants on their attitudes about satire’s political function and the politicians who play along or satirize themselves on those programs. The politicians’ own communication skills were found to be important, but the key to their success was also related to factors such as the format of the performance, the type of humor used, the status of the satire program in broader political discourse, and the role of the satirist as either facilitator or combatant. It was found that satire is a complex practice that can endorse as it criticizes and create sympathy as it ridicules.

“When Political Comedy Turns Personal: Humor Types, Audience Evaluations, and Attitudes” (with Amy Becker, Towson University) in the Howard Journal of Communication, Spring 2014.

This study examines the impact of diverse comedy types on relevant political attitudes and what happens when the comedy content moves beyond the political to focus on personal attributes that are beyond a politician's control. Using a real political case study of David Paterson, New York's first blind and African American governor, the research measured the differential impact of exposure to self-directed and other-directed hostile humor on evaluations of comedy content, favorability ratings, perceptions of media portrayals of disability, and attitudes toward blindness. The results suggest that differential exposure to the comedy clips had an impact on attitudes toward blindness with those exposed to Paterson's humor exhibiting more positive attitudes toward blindness than those who were exposed to Saturday Night Live's other-directed hostile humor.

Building Comic Imagination Through Political Parody: A Critical Discourse Analysis on Donald Trump in the President Show and Saturday Night Live’s the Presidential Debate

Rubikon : Journal of Transnational American Studies, 2020

The number of Americans watching political comedy shows has significantly growing recent years. The views increase as TV channels spread their programs into social media, such as YouTube. The comic and funny aspects depicted in the political parody can be in the forms of imitation, impersonation, and reflection of one’s character, expression, and appearance. This paper aims to investigate American TV programs, The President Show and Saturday Night Live’s The Presidential Debate, by employing humor theory seen from Van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis. The dialogues used by the impersonators are analyzed to figure out the elements of funny features, comedy, and parody. Hence, the purpose of this study is to answer whether or not the discourse mechanism can build humor in The President Show and Saturday Night Live’s The Presidential Debate. The data apply ten Comedy Central’s YouTube videos and four Saturday Night Live’s YouTube videos. The data comprises of political and power disc...

The Political Force of the Comedic

Contemporary Political Theory

Political comedy, whether it is in the form of an entertainment news show, meme, cartoon or even when a comedian uses their set to focus on a political issue has become ubiquitous in the past 20 years. This is not just an American phenomenon. Countries worldwide have their own political comedy shows. Comedians who confront authority have been elected to office. A sense of humor is now seen as a requirement on campaign trails. We suggest that comedy's dominance in popular

What's the Deal With Liberals? The Discursive Construction of Partisan Identities in Stand-Up Comedy

Standing Up, Speaking Out: Stand-Up Comedy and the Rhetoric of Social Change by Matthew R. Meier (Editor), Casey R. Schmitt (Editor), 2017

Merging sociological theories of collective identity with rhetorical theories of humor, this chapter takes a look at the elusive phenomenon of conservative stand-up comedy in the United States of America. Drawing on a discursive analysis of a stand-up routine performed by the right-wing comedian Brad Stine, particular attention is placed on how Stine's rhetorical practices contribute to the construction of both liberal and conservative partisan-based identities in the US political sphere. Although the conservative comedic stances of Stine strive for satire, we argue that they end up relying on a form of the burlesque which traffics heavily in resentment, anger and prejudice. Ultimatley, it is argued that the exclusivist identity-building practices which accompany such forms of humor prevent the constructive forms of debates and dialogue that are needed to sustain a healthy functioning democratic system. Book chapter in Standing up, Speaking out: Stand-up Comedy and the Rhetoric of Social Change (2017) Meier, M. and Schmitt, C. New York:Routledge

“Parody, Performativity, and Play: The Reinvigoration of Citizenship through Political Satire.” In A Companion to New Media Dynamics, eds. John Hartley, Jean Burgess and Axel Bruns (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 396-406.

A nation's political culture is an ever-changing, amorphous thing, comprised and shaped at any given time by numerous forces and behaviors that are never quite stable. Yet for decades in most Western societies, television played an enormously powerful role in establishing and maintaining some of the most basic normative (and seemingly stable) assumptions comprising the communicative dimensions of its political culture. These include aspects such as what constitutes legitimate forms of representation, discussion, display, and participation in and through the medium; who can legitimately speak there; how such speech will be regulated; and the ways in which viewers are expected to engage with it. This role played by television broadcasting has, of course, been greatly challenged over the last few decades through changes brought on by new media dynamics. At first through increased competition in the US cable and commercial broadcasting system (as well as competition to state-run television monopolies elsewhere) and then through the digital revolution that swept through all media forms and platforms , processes of disruption, challenge, and change have been occurring at a rapid pace. Within political culture, this has lead to a measureable impact on the dominant conceptions and assumptions of what constitutes mediated political communication and participation and, at the broadest level, citizenship itself.