Monday, April 30, 2012

Slow Jamming the News

Recently President Barack Obama show a guest was on the Jimmy Fallon Show taped at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Jimmy Fallon is known for being one of the funniest comedians on late night television. Having the President of the United States on this show not only shed new light on what the president is like outside the office but he also managed to fit in some useful information about the president and his campaign. Much like the Daily Show or The Colbert Report, millions of people watch Jimmy Fallon's show and this is a way that could trigger people to see and hear about what is going on in the world today. In fact, according to The Washington Post this particular show racked in the show's best numbers in two years.

One of the skits that Jimmy Fallon did that night to open the show was called "Slow-Jamming the News". I thought it was really funny and it put a different twist to the "news" and president Obama. This is highly related to what we are learning in class about digital journalism and the forms of it. It puts the news in a different light that isn't so formal which makes it more attractive to people in my opinion. If the news is being put on a show that so many people watch in a less than traditional way it gives the news a new path. It opens up doors for people to investigate their world. It may not be the most informational piece but I think in the realm of digital journalism it can trigger an audience to do more research on their own to find out more. It works as a sort of teaser that lets the audience know the very broad and diminished version but it doesn't stop them from wanting more.

1 comment:

  1. As a fan of musical renditions of the news (including my personal favorite: Autotune the News), I enjoyed this segment. But I think it is important to provide a link to the material at p://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/obama-slow-jams-the-news-with-fallon_n_1450968.html explicitly and to try to make clear connections to the material in class (perhaps by noting how Boler argues that late night comedy shows provides an important type of "ironic citizenship").

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