The 74 Questions I Have for Grad School

Listen Now: Colbert Cancelled – Comedy Communications

This is the podcast version of our post from a couple of weeks ago:

1. Listen Now: Colbert Cancelled
2. Listen Now: My News Ecosystem: What I'm Listening To, Reading, and Watching
3. Listen Now: Is Comedy News Good?
4. Listen Now: Plagiarism & Self-Plagiarism
5. Listen Now: Media as Forms of Protest – Minchin & Andor

When you apply for a Masters program, you need to write a letter of intent. Your letter of intent explains why you want to do the program, what you want to look at, what you know, and what theories you plan to utilize. Now I have lots of intentions when it comes to my Masters, but oh boy tackling things and making one firm point of attack and research idea is certainly difficult for me to pin down. As I’m sure you can already tell just based on this blog alone, I love to touch on plenty of different topics, slowly spinning a web of ideas together to make one large (and sometimes messy) masterpiece.

For my letter of intent, I said that I would “focus my research on the efficacy of differing mediums in shaping political messaging, movements, and outcomes.” I also said that my objective would be to “analyze how Donald Trump and the Make American Great Again (MAGA) movement use[d] comedy podcasting to generate support for their party and policies, and undermine their political opponents” and that “I intend to review the effectiveness of these methods on influencing political outcomes.” I believe there is a gap in research on podcasting, and think it is an interesting topic to explore. For the theories I wanted to use, we’ve mentioned before; Two-step Flow Theory, Cultivation Theory, and Agenda Setting Theory. I also said I would use a mixed methods approach to my research, because I hope to do a little bit of content analysis and some primary research, but that may be a little too adventurous.

So, what I’ve done today, is pull all the questions I’ve come up with over the course of the last three months so we can really see where my current interests are, and where my though process is going! But of course, I want to go back to the first questions I asked when I started this project:

• Is comedy (and political satire) an effective and reliable means of relaying information to an audience?
  • Does the audience remember the information?
  • Is the audience more or less likely to be outraged?
• Is comedy news “good”?
• Is comedy an effective way to point out or protest political absurdity?
• What impact does the person who is delivering the information have on the reception of this information? (positive or negative).

For the rest, all of our outstanding questions that I believe would be very interesting to explore:

• Is comedy news an effective way to get your news?
• Are comedy news, traditional news, podcasting, and other untraditional news sources:
  • Effective at relaying the facts?
  • Memorable? As in will I remember those facts?
  • Impacting the level of importance of the information? Does this make the issue seem more or less important than it is?
  • Creating echo chambers? If I watch all of these late-night shows, am I putting myself into an echo chamber?
• Do you need to watch all the late-night shows to get the news of the week, or is one good enough? Are they good at all as sources of news?
• How do late-night comedy news shows stack up to one another? Will they have the same, or nearly the same, jokes? Do they cover different things?
• How do you fight the idea of information overload or flooding the zone?
• Are models of communications still relevant today, or do we need an updated model?
• Why do the French trust news more than the English in Canada?
  • Is it because there is a higher concentration of French news sources in Canada vs English?
  • Is there also a difference because there are so many American news sources that wouldn’t be available in French?
• How many people listen to podcasts when compared to other mediums?
• How likely are recipients to believe or connect with information posed to them in written, oral, or visual form? Do they need to witness these things first-hand, or is second-hand information acceptable? When is that acceptable? Who is it acceptable from? What will or won’t they accept first vs second-hand?
• Do recipients believe their family or friends more than the news or external experts (including podcasters)?
• Do podcasters count as friends? Where is the line drawn? Is there a difference between podcasters? Would some be more trustable than others? Or perhaps is one podcaster considered a friend, whereas another wouldn’t be?
• Are podcasters considered “every day people” or are they considered “subject matter experts?”
• Do people trust podcasts more than radio?
• Does cultivation theory work even if the audience doesn’t believe the message is true?
• Does cultivation theory work even if the audience doesn’t believe the sender?
• Will it wear them down over time, or do they need to be presented with alternative evidence? Is education a factor when it comes to cultivation theory?
• Does making fun of a political candidate make them more likeable?
• Do people like an underdog?
  • What about a confident underdog?
• Is a candidate who shows humour, and has the ability to laugh at their own expense more likeable? Or are they viewed as weak?
• If someone can’t laugh at their own expense, do we want them to represent us politically?
• How are political endorsements impactful? I wonder about comedians, podcasters, late-night hosts, or celebrities. Or is an endorsement from a friend more likely to sway your opinion?
• Did Donald Trump use podcasts to effectively sway the American population to vote for him?
• Does comedy distort the information/facts?
• Does comedy add to, or take away from political discourse?
• Does comedy make news/politics more accessible?
• Is there an argument to suggest that comedy news is a “Liberal” or “left” echo chamber?
• Is there a connection between the medium chosen for your news/media and your political affiliation?
• Who/what do we trust for reliable electoral information? Do we trust our family, friends, subject matter experts, the media, podcasters, political figures, our gut?
• If we believe that other people are wrong, couldn’t we also be wrong?
• Are late-night shows dying, or are viewers looking elsewhere for their news?
• How is traditional media holding up financially and in viewership?
• What does trust in traditional media look like?
• Are viewers still consuming news from the same sources, but just in a different format or medium?
• Are more people opting to step away from informed voting?
• Are more people opting to step away from getting the news at all?
• Instead of television and radio, are we seeing an increase in podcast and YouTube viewership?
• What about social media for news?
• What has the digital landscape done to media companies?
• Do individuals believe that they can pick out fake or false information better than the average person?
• What impact does a reduced attention span have on our ability to get all the information?
• When it comes to elections, do official party platforms even matter? Are our minds already made up?
• Can Rick Mercer unite us all?
• Will attacks against journalists and the media include those offering us a laugh?

And there we have it, a whopping 74 questions asked. Now hopefully we can find some answers!