Posted on 05/05/2009 12:14:40 PM PDT by steve-b
They say that many people now get much of their news from satire. Which might make you wonder where they get their satire from.
However, researchers at the Ohio State University wanted to get into the bowels of the political satire phenomenon and were perhaps a little surprised at how it is all being digested.
They subjected 332 people of varying political bents to a three-minute clip of "The Colbert Report." They then produced their own report, fetchingly entitled "Political Ideology and The Motivation to See What You Want to See in the Colbert Report."
The guinea pigs were flawless and flu-less in their concentration. They seemed to have all laughed. Yes, Stephen Colbert is funny, they all seemed to agree. Except for the fact that many conservatives appear to think that he is only pretending to be funny.
Which cries out for the question: "So is that still funny?" Shortly followed by the question: "You think he's just Bill O'Reilly, but thinner?"
A "yes" to both questions appears to offer a fair and balanced view of the situation.
Lead researcher Heather LaMarre was quoted by Miller-McCune.com as saying: "Liberals will see him as an over-the-top satire of a Bill O'Reilly-type pundit and think that he is making fun of a conservative pundit."
She continued: "But conservatives will say, yes, he is an over-the-top satire of Bill O'Reilly, but by being funny he gets to make really good points and make fun of liberals. So they think the joke is on liberals."
I know many large heads will say we are all so timber-skulled that we choose to see what we want to see in any living--or even dead--thing. You know, Ronald Reagan, Che Guevara, Chia Pets, John Denver, Lady Ga-Ga, PCs, hairy backs.
We choose to believe someone loves us when, to others, it is clear they haven't even noticed us. We choose to believe we are cool, clever, tall, short, fat--hey, even funny--regardless of any objective facts that stare us in the face and shout: "Oy! Fact here!".
LaMarre and her fellow examiners are positing that rather than stopping people on their subjective road more traveled and making them reassess their mental direction, Colbert may actually be reinforcing their prejudices.
Which, some might think, isn't very funny at all.
I believe Colbert’s entire life is one big joke. On him.
Because, as a conservative, I am soooo stupid.
Yeah....and we’re just “joking” that Obomba is a Muslim....
I don’t believe this for one minute. I have yet to meet a conservative who thinks that Colbert is funny. Plus, it’s just hard to find a conservative who actually knows who Colbert is.
I remember a time when you weren’t subjected to the subtle nuances of politics from C|Net.
The only people who don’t know who Colbert is are people who don’t have cable.
Hedley's great-granddaughter?
Sometimes Colbert can be quite humorous. But I will admit, he does more conservative and Republican bashing (esp about Bush) than anything toward the Liberals/Left or Obama.
He is not fair and balanced, and I wish he would blast the Democrats/Liberals more. However he does do a good job to comically shut his left leaning guests down.
You have to have a tough skin and open minded sense of humor to sit through some of his shows IMO.
So 330 students total, multiplied by 10% because that’s probably the number of Republicans the lefty author bothered to find, for a sample size of 30.
I think most of us see Colbert as a slightly-less-annoying, but still just as pseudo-intellecual and unfunny, Jon Stewart.
Colbert’s another liberal POS with a captive audience to spew his hatred of all things conservative to.
Liberals love him, conservatives generally see right through the comedy thing to what he really is. A liberal POS.
Colbert is despised by this conservative...a snarky little nancey boy who needs a good lo country azzwhippin’...I’d love to catch him here in the Great state of SC and let him know what I think of him and the other spineless faux politico uncomedian John Liebowitz!
I guess if I’d ever seen this Colbert guy for 3 seconds on TV, this might make sense. I don’t even know what channel he’s on.
Or those of us who have cable, but use it only for sports, and a VERY limited number of other programs.
I have never seen Colbert. Five kids and a business to run, just don't have time for TV.
Cnet is just part of the Borg Media, it is a CBS agent. You know CBS the home of that famous yournolustic Dan Rather!
Isn’t he that guy on STFUBC that has two different ear configurations?
I’m too stupid to realize Colbert is making fun of me. Really.
One of the nice things about having a hundred channels, a shelf full of books, and a several-hundred disc record changer is the fact that I never ever have to watch these nimrods.
There are whole generations of sitcom actors and comedy-channel funny-men I couldn’t identify if they sat down next to me at the coffee shop.
Some, maybe not you. Newsflash: most people are pretty stupid. That is all.
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