The Stanford Daily Show (PWR 91C)
Offered Spring 2012
Instructor: Helle Rytkønen
Prerequisites: PWR 1 and PWR 2
In 2010, Jon Stewart, comedian and host of the satirical news program The Daily Show was named the most influential man in the US, outranking people like President Obama and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.
This is maybe not surprising.
Stewart's and fellow comedian Steve Colbert's 2010 "Rally to Restore Sanity" attracted a quarter million Americans on the National Mall. And every night, millions of us watch fake news’ scathing critique of politicians and mainstream news media. In fact, studies show that a large percentage of young Americans (21%) rely on The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and the Onion for their news about the world. Studies also suggest that these viewers are generally well informed, at least about the major issues of the day, and that they are more likely to vote than young people who do not watch fake news.
In this class, we will study fake news programs such as The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and the Onion, but instead of writing about their use of humor to make a persuasive argument, we will produce The Stanford Daily Show, our own version of a fake news program.
For your final class project, you will research a topic of your own choice and write and perform it as if it was a segment from a “real” fake news show. Your topic has to be informed, relevant, and humorous and it has to be tailored to a Stanford audience. As fake news segments often circulate virally through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, you will also have to carefully consider how to address your audience in different media. Leading up to the final project, you will also be asked to write a satirical interview and a parody news story for our final class “newspaper.”
You do not have to be funny, an actor or even a fan of fake news to enjoy this class.
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