America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy

by S. McClennen

Overview

America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy post 9/11 argues that, in contrast to the anti-intellectualism, the sensationalism, and the punditry that tend to govern most mass media today, Stephen Colbert's program offers his audience the opportunity to understand the context through which most news is reported and to be critical of it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137014726
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	11/30/2011
Series:	Education, Politics and Public Life
Edition description:	2011
Pages:	217
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Sophia A. McClennen is Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Women's Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA where she directs the Center for Global Studies and the graduate program in Comparative Literature.

Table of Contents

I Stand By This Man: Colbert Speaks Truthiness to Power The Public at Risk: Dissent and Democracy after 9/11 Proud to Be an American Satirist America According to The Colbert Report: Or How a TV Show Can Change the Way a Nation Thinks Amusing Ourselves to Activism?

Editorial Reviews

"America According to Colbert demonstrates that Colbert's work is also a form of public pedagogy, teaching his audiences to be distrustful of power and fools, and to view all politicians, pundits, and politics itself with mistrust. McClennen's well-written and documented study brilliantly illuminates the Colbert phenomenon and its importance for contemporary politics, journalism, and popular culture today." - Douglas Kellner, Professor, UCLA; author of Guys and Guns Amok and Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy

"America According to Colbert is beautifully readable and delightfully smart; rich in examples and conceptual frame. McClennen gives us a master class in the critical pedagogy of Colbert." - Geoffrey Baym, Associate Professor, Department of Media Studies, University of North Carolina Greensboro

"An always insightful and often delightful reading of the most sustained and successful exercise in political satire in modern American life. Stephen Colbert would no doubt agree - well, about all but the 'satire' part. Let the eagle soar!" - Geoffrey Nunberg, Adjunct Full Professor, School of Information, University of California at Berkeley

From the Publisher