Abstract
During the years of the George W. Bush administration, political satire had a renaissance in the United States. In 2004, a national Annenberg Election Study claimed that viewers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart were better informed about the candidates than those who just watched regular news. During these years, The Daily Show had a quick rise in popularity that resulted in the spin-off show The Colbert Report. In an increasingly polarized news media culture, these two shows became known for having a certain influence on political discourse in the country, and were dubbed the fifth estate by some scholars. In January 2009, the Bush years were over, and this thesis has researched how the status of these two shows held up with a Democratic run White House. The research found that the change of administration did not change the polarization of the media, but merely shifted the focus of the criticism dealt by the two satirical news shows from the president to the media. With the election of 2012 as a frame of reference, this thesis shows how The Daily Show and The Colbert Report find different ways to convey the news as comedy, how they keep their audience well-informed about current issues in the process, and how they fulfill their work as the fifth estate through criticizing the news media when needed, with particular emphasis on criticizing the conservative network Fox News.