Political Ideology and Satire by Paul

The article we read about Political Ideology and its relationship with satire published the results of an experiment about the relationship between people's political views and what they found to be the meaning of the Colbert report clips they were watching.  Minus the complicated numbers and details, the experiment found that both conservatives and liberals found the Colbert report to be funny, but each also found that Colbert was agreeing with their own political stance.  This puts satire's effectiveness into question because after all, if everyone thinks that satire is suggesting that they're views are correct then how can anything be improved or any positive change be brought about?  Maybe satirists should devote more energy to writing satires about the effectiveness of satires.

Satires should have a target picked out, satirists should have goals  According to Ogborn and Buckroyd, satirists have "the desire to 'mend the world'".  If this is the true goal of satirists then I think they should take a minute to evaluate themselves, because I sure don't see the Colbert report impacting society.  No, I think Ogborn and Buckroyd got it wrong, mending the world is a giant job, much to big for a sarcastic article or snarky video to perform.  The true job of the satirist should be to give the world a little finger prick, and make the world stop for a second to consider what just happened to it.  Satirists should point out hypocrisy and attack overlooked problems.  They should provoke debate and force thought, and contribute to society by making it stop for a second to wonder if there really is any reason behind its actions.

Summary of Colbert on SOPA by Paul

This short clip of from Colbert Report begins with Colbert saying that as a content provider he is "wholeheartedly against the infringement of copyright" and that he is so against it that he had that phrase copyrighted and put on a Mickey Mouse doll.  He then goes on to seriously say that copyright infringement  is a big deal and that the media loses 200-250 billion dollars a year according to the FBI. Then he shows where later in the same article the FBI says that it has no way of corroborating those sources, so he infers in the way that only Colbert can that the FBI bought the report bootlegged in Chinatown.  Colbert likens piracy to J-walking and jokes about its seriousness.  He then introduces the bill and its stipulations, before finally showing a clip of a bunch of little girls dancing to the song "Single Ladies" by Beyonce and joking about the potential to throw them in jail for such grievous offenses.