Keeping It (Hyper) Real

In Jason Holt & William Irwin, The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy: More Moments of Zen, More Indecision Theory. Wiley. pp. 69–82 (2013)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are not the only purveyors of fake news, but they are among the few media figures willing to admit it. Fake news looks a lot like actual news. Both The Colbert Report and The Daily Show push fake news beyond satire. As a result, they enact the postmodern condition described in the philosophical works of Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007). In Baudrillard's terms, these shows are only possible in an age when news has become a simulacrum of “news,” an image of “news” radically unmoored from verifiable reality. Both shows force a confrontation with simulated news, turning it against itself, and refusing to let us viewers off the hook. In a postmodern culture that tempts us to deny that there even is a hook, Stewart and Colbert, as anchors, anchor us to the real.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 104,919

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2023-06-15

Downloads
15 (#1,329,412)

6 months
8 (#529,692)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references