ODU’s Jones Publishes Collection of Essays on Trend in Satirical News Commentary
December 05, 2012
Jeffrey Jones, associate professor of communication and director of Old Dominion University's Institute of Humanities, has published a collection of essays by authors around the globe about the burgeoning trend of satirical news commentary.
"News Parody and Political Satire Across the Globe" was published in October by Routledge. The book is a reproduction of a series of essays from the academic journal Popular Communication, edited by Jones and Geoffrey Baym, associate professor of media studies at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.
In recent years, the self-described American fake news program "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" has become a surprisingly important source of information, conversation and commentary about public affairs. At the same time, so-called "fake news" is now a truly widespread phenomenon, with various forms of news parody and political satire programming appearing throughout the world.
"News Parody and Political Satire Across the Globe" takes a close and critical look at global news parody from a wide range of countries. In addition to the United States and United Kingdom, other countries represented include France, Hungary, Australia, Israel and Palestine, Iran and India.
Jones and Baym are co-authors of the book's lead essay, "News Parody in Global Perspective: Politics, Power and Resistance." They conclude that news parody often serves a watchdog function by monitoring and exposing media excess and artifice, strategically aiming its sights on the machinery of news and current affairs programming that routinely make claims on the real.
The book was compiled to help readers better understand the intersections of journalism, politics and comedy as they take shape around the globe in a variety of political and media systems.
An expert in pop culture scholarship, Jones is the author of "Entertaining Politics: Satiric Television and Political Engagement," and co-editor of "Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post Network Era" and "The Essential HBO Reader."