The critiques The Daily Show makes do not usually originate with Jon Stewart. Even when generally ignored by the corporate news media they are usually circulating in the alternative media, online, and through interpersonal communication. While it's probably fair to say that many of the people who follow progressive alternative media watch or at least like the Daily Show, much of the audience of the Daily Show probably does not regularly follow alternative news media. For them the Daily Show is often the only place they hear a particular message. This is significant from a message framing perspective because the Daily Show is branded as a comedy show.
I don't mean to imply that the Daily Show's audience uniformly buys into the idea that it is just comedy. The effectiveness of propaganda always varies with each individual member of the audience. However, effectiveness aside, the branding is deliberate. In contexts outside of his show Stewart makes this clear by insisting that he's just a comedian and that comedy isn't something that's supposed to be taken too seriously. For most people, when presented with two opposing narratives, one posed by a news program and one posed by a comedy program, the logical assumption would be to trust more in the news program's narrative. By association this has the affect of discrediting the same critique when heard from a more credible source. For instance, since many people will only hear a particular message on the Daily Show, when one person hears that critique presented by a second person who learned it from a more credible alternative source, the first person is likely to assume the second also just heard it on the Daily Show.
The Daily Show serves the propaganda system primarily by branding alternative news narratives as comedy. At the same time it gives the general media system additional credibility by showing that they don't censor alternative ideas. They can essentially say "If we were propagandizing you, why would we let these ideas get out at all?" Most modern propaganda systems use this technique. Allowing people to get a small amount of contradictory information (from easily discreditable sources of course) gives the system as a whole more credibility. On the rightwing side figures like Glen Beck serve a similar purpose, except instead of being branded as a comedian he's branded as crazy. Too uniform a message arouses people's suspicions, this is why propaganda in many totalitarian states is so ineffective. Allowing a debate to take place, but carefully restricting its parameters, prevents damaging messages from entering the marketplace of ideas, without raising these suspicions.
Creating the idea of a political spectrum, with a left, a center, and a right (it's interesting from a message framing perspective which side is right), is an old and still vital tool for setting the range of the debate. Which issues delineate the spectrum shifts with the times, but they are usually set around issues that will divide the working class and prevent any coalition that might challenge the ruling class's power. The corporate news media play an important role in setting this range by staking out ideological positions along the spectrum and then using identity marketing to attract a certain demographic to that ideological position (see Naomi Klein's No Logo for an in-depth discussion of new marketing and branding techniques). So we have CNN that stakes out the "neutral" middle position; MSNBC stakes out a position on the left (but not far enough left to challenge ruling class interests too much); while FOX stakes out the position on the right (far enough right to definitively serve ruling class interests).
FOX and MSNBC essentially set the range of how far it's legitimate to go either left or right on the political spectrum. Then comedy programs like the Daily Show, Colbert, or Maher, set the range of the illegitimate left (real left wing radicals are off the scale entirely). On the other side, racist, fascist talk show hosts set the range of what's too far to the right (so that the non-offensive mainstream conservatism becomes the center). The different stations then use identity marketing techniques (things like speaking mannerisms, accents, body language, clothing and hair styles, etc.) to make certain demographics more comfortable with a particular media outlet, and thereby try to make them accepting of that outlet's ideological position. Identity marketing has pretty much taken over advertising, and its application in politics (identity politics) is increasing with each election cycle. The Daily Show plays an important role in identifying progressive politics with a Comedy Central audience kind of demographic.
I don't want this to come off as a hit piece on the Daily Show or as an attack against Jon Stewart. My criticism is not directed at them but at the system they exist within. I love the Daily Show; it's one of the few television shows I watch regularly. I think Jon Stewart and his staff deserve a great deal of respect. I do think it's better for the perspective he represents to be presented by a comedian than not be presented at all. My point is to shed light on the significance behind a system that only represents that perspective as comedy.
Jon Stewart is an unabashed progressive. His jests and critiques certainly represent that bias. This has the unfortunate effect of turning off people with opposing views. Unfortunate, since some of his critiques transgress the level of partisan pettiness to highlight social problems that should concern all who value democracy, liberty, and justice. He gets away with this because he's a comedian. Would he be allowed to repeatedly make the critiques he makes about the media and about our political system if he were in the role of a legitimate journalist? More realistically, holding his views, would he ever have made it on the air as a journalist at all?
I'm not arguing that anyone designed the Daily Show with a bunch of subtle manipulative factors in mind, or that Jon Stewart is secretly trying to manipulate his audience. The Daily Show is designed to be funny. The more subtle effects of branding the perspectives presented by the Daily Show as comedy may or may not have been considered by some producer or other stakeholder in the corporate media system. Still, whether explicitly considered or not, they do affect the perceptions of audiences. I hope that an awareness and an understanding of these effects will help my audience see through them.
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