Off the Grid

With that, I marched forwards towards my newfound goal of investigating how the content and delivery of content differs across the satirical news and mainstream news genres. In order to create a manageable scope for myself, I decided that I would pick two popular satirical shows [The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight] and compare them to news from two popular mainstream networks [CNN, ABC]. Here’s an excerpt from my project proposal:

 

As a prospective management consultant, I’ve always been taught to “structure” my analysis and break problems into smaller parts. Therefore, in order to evaluate both genres for form and content, I must first break down the subcomponents of content and form. I have provided an example of this below (although the specific breakdown will involve more subcomponents as I explore my topic further):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my head, I envisioned a quantitative masterpiece in which I dissected every branch of the tree above by evaluating coverage on similar issues. But then I realized that ‘CNN’ and ‘ABC’ aren’t monolithic entities—it’s not really fair to compare two shows to two networks. So I adjusted my framework, and decided to pick shows within those networks that are similar to The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight. I ended up choosing Anderson Cooper 360 and ABC Nightly News. The next step involved choosing my case studies to compare coverage, but I struggled to find issues that were covered substantially by all four programs. It was hard to find overlapping topics; for example, John Oliver tended to cover more niche events that I couldn’t find on The Daily Show. An inkling of doubt began to sprout in my mind--why am I trying to quantitatively benchmark these shows that rarely cover the same issues?

 

In response, I cut my sample size in half and decided to limit my analysis to Last Week Tonight and Anderson Cooper 360, because I found 3-4 viable case studies. Finally, I felt a little less anxious, and wrote this script as an introduction to my media analysis that would compare coverage of (1) the Scottish Recession, (2) Net Neutrality, and (3) torture as a government tool in 2015. Despite conceding that the two shows shared little overlapping content, I saw these three case studies as an opportunity to compare Oliver and Cooper’s coverage. I finally felt comfortable, ready to jump into my media analysis--and then I found it.