PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE BEYOND JOURNALISM: INFOTAINMENT, SATIRE AND AUSTRALIAN TELEVISION STEPHEN HARRINGTON BCI(Media&Comm), BCI(Hons)(MediaSt) Submitted April, 2009 For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology, Australia 1 2 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made. _____________________________________________ Stephen Matthew Harrington Date: 3 4 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the changing relationships between television, politics, audiences and the public sphere. Premised on the notion that mediated politics is now understood “in new ways by new voices” (Jones, 2005: 4), and appropriating what McNair (2003) calls a “chaos theory” of journalism sociology, this thesis explores how two different contemporary Australian political television programs (Sunrise and The Chaser’s War on Everything) are viewed, understood, and used by audiences. In analysing these programs from textual, industry and audience perspectives, this thesis argues that journalism has been largely thought about in overly simplistic binary terms which have failed to reflect the reality of audiences’ news consumption patterns. The findings of this thesis suggest that both ‘soft’ infotainment (Sunrise) and ‘frivolous’ satire (The Chaser’s War on Everything) are used by audiences in intricate ways as sources of political information, and thus these TV programs (and those like them) should be seen as legitimate and valuable forms of public knowledge production. It therefore might be more worthwhile for scholars to think about, research and teach journalism in the plural: as a series of complementary or antagonistic journalisms, rather than as a single coherent entity. 5 KEYWORDS News Journalism Television Politics Public Sphere Media Audiences Breakfast Television Satire Cultural Chaos Intertextuality Televisual Sphere Sunrise The Chaser The Daily Show Media Ethnography 6 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................19 Hypothesis................................................................................................................22 Audience Research: A Realist Perspective..............................................................26 Structure...................................................................................................................30 Notes ........................................................................................................................34 CHAPTER 1: POLITICS, ‘OLD’ NEWS, CHAOS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE ..................35 Tabloidisation and the ‘Narrative of Decline’ .........................................................36 The Power of the Popular ........................................................................................41 News We Can Use? .................................................................................................45 Cultural Chaos .........................................................................................................47 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................51 Notes ........................................................................................................................57 CHAPTER 2: ‘NEW’ NEWS, ‘FAKE’ NEWS, AUDIENCES AND PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE..59 ‘New’ News .............................................................................................................61 ‘New’ Audiences .....................................................................................................65 Textual Hybridity: Meaningful Pleasure .................................................................68 Making it Matter ......................................................................................................70 Youth and Hybridity ................................................................................................73 ‘Fake’ News? ...........................................................................................................76 ‘Fake’ News as The Anti-FOX................................................................................79 Partisan?...................................................................................................................85 Fifth Estate? .............................................................................................................88 Audiences for New Political Television ..................................................................92 7 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................93 Notes ........................................................................................................................96 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS.............................................................................97 Participant Recruitment and Participation ...............................................................98 Data Collection and Analysis.................................................................................104 Conclusion: Managing Qualitative Research.........................................................105 Notes ......................................................................................................................109 CHAPTER 4: ‘RECIPROCAL’ JOURNALISM: SUNRISE, ORDINARINESS, AND BREAKFAST TELEVISION...........................................................................................111 What is Sunrise? ....................................................................................................112 Breakfast Time.......................................................................................................118 “Real people have Nicknames”: The Hosts...........................................................127 Listening to (and Harnessing) ‘The Family’..........................................................142 Conclusion .............................................................................................................149 Notes ......................................................................................................................152 CHAPTER 5: SUNRISE AND PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE: NEWSTAINMENT, POLITICS AND THE ‘TELEVISUAL’ SPHERE.......................................................................................155 Tabloid? .................................................................................................................156 Genre......................................................................................................................160 ‘Dumbing Down’? .................................................................................................163 Depth of News .......................................................................................................170 The Televisual Sphere............................................................................................176 Conclusion .............................................................................................................187 Notes ......................................................................................................................189 8 CHAPTER 6: PUSH IT TO THE LIMITS: POLITICAL SATIRE, CULTURAL SATIRE AND THE CHASER’S WAR...................................................................................................191 Waging war on Everything… ................................................................................193 Pushing It: Stunts ...................................................................................................197 Genre......................................................................................................................204 Political Satire........................................................................................................209 ‘It’s about Culture’.................................................................................................218 Conclusion .............................................................................................................232 Notes ......................................................................................................................234 CHAPTER 7: CHASING REPORTERS: MEDIA SATIRE, INTERTEXTUALITY AND PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE .............................................................................................................237 Media Satire...........................................................................................................238 Media Satire and Commercial TV .........................................................................243 Critical Intertextuality............................................................................................247 Dissecting the Tabloid ...........................................................................................252 When ‘Old’ meets ‘New’.......................................................................................260 Media Sceptics.......................................................................................................268 Conclusion: Willingness to