Holt, Jason, ed. The Daily Show and Philosophy

Holt, Jason, ed. The Daily Show and Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

A fannish collection that aligns Stewart with Neil Postman, Socrates and the Greek Cynics. TDS and Philosophy is one of the ‘purest’ form of the approach that asserts, in the words of one of its contributors, that “with political satire in particular, humor can’t be disconnected from the broader social project of liberation” (Vanderheiden 206), thereby attributing to political humour an entirely critical and liberatory function. Ignores issues of political economy, medium, capitalist structures or any nuanced theory of humour. Stewart is hailed as a modern philosopher or public intellectual, and the show is lauded an exercise in unimpeachable critical thinking.

Gray, Jonathan, Jeffrey Jones and Ethan Thompson. Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era

Gray, Jonathan, Jeffrey Jones and Ethan Thompson. Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2009.

An account of contemporary satirical TV shows - including The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, South Park, SNL, Dave Chappelle, Sacha Baron Cohen and Chris Morris - which provides useful descriptive and historical content. Theoretically bound to Bahktin via Crichtley school of humour theory, however, which leads to unsophisticated celebrations of subversive and critical power of satire as political force. Useful categorisations of terminology, but reductive critical political analysis leads to premature conclusions.