La difícil situació de les comunitats monàstiques

The main premise of this chapter was to understand people’s motivations for attending a rally that: (1) took place two days before the mid-term election, (2) was hosted by two popular satire artists, (3) promoted a political issue of bringing civil discourse back to politics, (4) would feature other celebrities and music artists and finally (5) was described by Stewart as a non-political event. It was anticipated, then, that the participants’ responses would be varied with regard to their justification for attending. The results gathered thus far illustrate that even though the rally’s message could be deemed ‘political’ a large proportion of the participants attended, not as a form of political participation, but simply to support Stewart’s non-partisan message and be in the presence of a like-minded community. Another popular response found in the newspaper analysis and interview process was that many attended the event to have fun or because they were fans of the TDS. Rallygoer Frances Ryl indicated that he came purely to have fun and enjoy the event. “It’s a blast and all about the fun”.

This campaign season has been really nasty so people are here to have some fun”

(Xinhua General News Service 2010). The Philadelphia Inquirer (Timpane 2010) also received similar responses when speaking to other rally attendees “to be sure, some

are going for the fun of it” These included student Max Walker, who stated, “I watch both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and I thought I’m going, everyone I know is going. It’s a fun, social thing to do: I’m not trying to make a point or anything”. Much of TDS research is pre-occupied with its critical take on

contemporary politics, yet with its presence on Comedy Central and the increasing popularity of its hosts it was inevitable that some people would attend the rally purely for fun. This reason is not exclusive to the rally as research shows that certain

demographics also watch TDS just for fun and entertainment. Burwell and Boler (2008) found when conversing with TDS fans online, that members commented on how “un-political” the fan community was. In sum, these findings support Dayan’s (2001: 75) argument regarding the fields of politics and popular culture: that the two produce very different types of audience practice (Cited in van Zoonen 2005: 56).

Entertainment for example brings audiences consisting of fans into being, whereas politics produces publics composed of citizens (Ibid). For some of the participants, their attendance was not motivated by a wish to make a political statement about the country’s political rhetoric. Instead, like those that watch TDS purely for escapism and for the comedic aspects of the show, these participants attended the rally for exactly the same reasons.

Another revealing aspect of this result was how many of the interviewees (10 out of 30) attended the rally for fun, even though (in Section 2) they identified themselves with ‘thick’ aspects of active citizenship. When asked about her reasons for attending Susan Bush²⁸ said, “Oh that would be for fun! I don’t think anyone thought it would be the beginning of a movement or a political statement; it was just a fun day. Just something light-hearted and positive, that was the whole point of it”. Similarly Rita McCarthy added:

Well I didn’t view it as a political statement [her attendance at the rally]. As I said I am politically active, I have rallied against the war in Vietnam, and I’ve gone to Washington to protest against the Iraq war so I know when something is a political statement. The rally wasn’t a political statement it was just an event” (Interview 24 January 2013).

Those that were familiar with thick practices of citizenship did not see the rally as a political or non-partisan event at all. Rita’s statement draws parallels with one of the

28 Interview with Susan Bush “5 February 2013).

major debates surrounding TDS and, in this instance the rally, and whether they are effective platforms for political engagement. As discussed in Chapter 4, TDS might be a useful platform for people who are unresponsive to more traditional modes of political communication (Temple 2006: 257) but how do avid followers of news and politics engage with it? For Rita Matthews, a self-confessed news and politics junkie and a political activist, she not only viewed the rally as non-political but the

programme too. When asking Rita about her reasons for watching TDS, she replied,

“well it’s definitely not for news, it’s just commentary and very funny”. Rita and some of the other interview respondent’s who considered themselves politically informed and engaged, appeared to dismiss TDS and the rally as effective news and political engagement platforms. Like Dayan (2001) they viewed the fields of politics and entertainment as separate entities. Consequently, this is why they appeared to have attended the rally for fun, rather than for politically motivated or non-partisan reasons.

7.13 Conclusion

As discussed throughout the last few chapters the ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’ was an ambiguous event with many different ideas and meanings attached to it by Jon

Stewart, the media and the American public. While the last chapter aimed to examine how the media framed the overall event, this chapter wanted to explore who the rally participants were and their motivations for attending.

The most popular media conception of the rally participants was that they were liberal-leaning citizens. This was closely followed by other frames that described them as young or that used carnivalesque examples relating to their fancy dress attire.

Some of these results mirror the research findings of scholars such as Young and Tisinger (2006: 126), Baym (2010) and Feldman (2007), who argue that the TDS audience is predominantly young and left leaning. There were some disparities however in the results obtained from the interviews and the field research relating to the age demographic of the attendees, as they were better described as mixed or middle-aged rather than young.

Descriptions characterising the participants in relation to their age and carnivalesque traits could be viewed by social movement scholars as an attempt by the news media

to undermine the participants’ aims and attendance (Murdock 1981, Gitlin 1980). This is because they detracted attention away from the rally’s core message, despite this being the main reason for the participants’ attendance. Also, the stereotypes

associated with young people and the multiple reasons for engaging with the rally via carnivalesque traits present an image of the attendees as an ineffective group that lacked a unified message and strategy.

The rally participants’ reasons for attending reflected Jon Stewart’s civility message as many came to support this idea and to be with like-minded individuals who felt the same way. Others however were simply motivated to attend because it would be a fun event. What was most telling about this set of results is that despite initial signs that their attendance was political, the results show that their attendance was, at best, a

‘thin’ form of citizenship. This is because none of the attendees featured in this study utilised or discussed collective action solutions regarding how sanity could be

restored. Their attendance then, was not a demonstration of activism but was more closely linked to the role they adopt when watching TDS programme: supporting Jon Stewart and his ability to speak on their behalf about the current state of politics and journalism practice.

This chapter has established the type of people the rally attendees were and also their reasons for attending. The result was a deeper insight into the type of people that engage with satirical news shows like TDS. Section two of this chapter found that TDS audiences are politically active, a result that refutes the idea discussed at the beginning of this chapter that the rally could encourage people to become politically active. In contrast, it does support Goldwaite-Young and Esralew’s (2011:112) findings that TDS audiences are engaged with high levels of political participation.

Their study however does not establish the type of political participation that is practised by TDS viewers, unlike this study, which found that it was mainly via ‘thin’

examples of citizenship like voting and petition signing. This might explain the participants’ reluctance, at the rally, to embrace thick demonstrations of civic

participation like collective action solutions because this was not something they did in their everyday lives. The ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’ however could have been the perfect environment to nurture thicker demonstrations of civic participation in the future. Mutz (2006: 3) for example, states that:

Environments where people share the same political outlook can be great for cultivating forms of activism because people are surrounded by those that agree with them and this reinforces the idea that their political view points are the only right and proper way to proceed.

Despite Stewart’s intentions for the rally to include people of different political orientations, the results of this study show that the event was in fact dominated by left-leaning citizens and people who wanted to be around those that shared a similar mind set. This is in line with Mutz’s description of an environment where people share similar ideologies and thought processes about politics. Despite this, none of the interviewees I spoke with felt motivated to embrace other forms of political participation. Of course, the reaction and behaviour of those who attended the rally for fun were completely justified, given that they viewed the rally as an apolitical event rather than as an activist platform. However for those participants who came to support the rally’s civility message, many of the findings here present a rather

pessimistic view of their approach to citizenship practices.

A number of the attendees could be described as hypocritical in that some attended the event to support the rally’s message; yet they still openly mocked and criticised the political groups that they were opposed to. A major theme evident in much of the research on the attendees was the potential cynicism they felt towards politics and active citizenship. This finding closely resembles Baumgartner and Morris’s (2006) study on audience engagement with satirical news programming which found increased levels of cynicism in TDS viewers. Indeed other cultural factors, like engagement with partisan news, may account for the participants’ responses regarding political participation in general and how it was practiced at the rally. Yet, it seems that their reluctance to enter into thicker forms of participation like political talk and the lack of collective action on display at the rally illustrate signs of a ‘cynical chic’

(Eliasoph 1998) disposition because of their inability to create political change.

In sum, the framing of the attendees, their reasons for attending and Stewart’s request for participation that lacked passion, raises questions about the success of the event and its ability to instigate political change. The following chapter will focus

specifically on this idea by examining the media and other sources’ interpretations of the effectiveness and impact of the ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’.