The reading:

I found this week’s reading very interesting- while I understood the logic behind how a satirical news television programme had a more successful impact on changing perceptions of viewers, I can’t help but laugh at the irony of it. It’s funny how when presented with a statement, we’re always expected to present both sides of the argument so that we can make a more objective conclusion/opinion about the aforementioned statement. For instance, when we write essays, often the ones which score well are the ones which can provide a balanced argument. In some cases, essays that are extremely biased also get a good mark but that’s only if the writer can provide an extremely solid idiot-proof argument with all the references in the world. So it’s just a bit odd to me that we almost reject the mainstream news angle on climate change because it’s too ‘objective’, and we ‘accept’ ( or perhaps react more positively is a better phrasing ) to the news angle that is meant to portray a very biased point of view. However I do understand the reasons why satirical news might be more successful than mainstream. Firstly, it’s hard to ignore the fact that satirical news programmes hit a wider target range than a mainstream television news programme would. For instance, how many millennials do you know that would religiously switch on the 7pm news? Whereas how many would go out of their way to watch an episode of Last Week Tonight? ( It’s also important to note that millennials make up a big percentage of the population, in the U.S it’s approx 30% of the voting age population ) So in a sense one of the reasons why satirical news programmes are more successful is because they not only reach audiences who are already interested in say, climate change, but also audiences who have no opinion on it or aren’t exceptionally interested in it. If you really think about it, between satirical news and mainstream news, satirical news has the slight advantage because it not only markets itself as news but also as entertainment and therefore their target audience range is much wider and that increases their level of influence on the population. Mainstream news, although provides ( or tries to ) provide an objective standpoint on current affairs around the world, it sometimes requires a level of education, literacy and interest to religiously watch it and understand it- in that sense, it is quite disadvantaged when compared to it’s counterpart.

The class:

This week’s class was quite focussed on pre-production of the final project in terms of getting things started. Working collaboratively with the entire class is much different than working collaboratively with just two people. While the general decision making process went quite smoothly I felt like the insistence to not adapt the Bendigo segment to the whole show was a little bit rigid. I think it’s important to note that the final project requires us to piece together seemingly unrelated topics therefore there has to space for flexibility within each of the topics in the show, otherwise things might seem incoherent and disorganised.

However, there are ways where incoherence might work. An example would be a local Singaporean film, Talking Cock,  that features satirical skits packaged together as a film- with no real plot or protagonists, the film still manages to entertain and deliver key messages relating to racism and discrimination in Singapore despite it’s chaotic, disorganised structure. [ here is the trailer I found on youtube which might shed more light on the nature of Talking Cock ]

While incoherence might work in some other satirical mediums like film, we are ultimately producing a comedy news tv show and therefore the same might not be said in that respect. Perhaps if we structured our show more like SNL where things are delivered through skits, it might work. But due to the nature of our John Oliver-esque obsession, I feel like the incoherent structure will just fall short.