In the article “Photoshop for Democracy”, one of the main points Henry Jenkins discusses is how our political culture is being “Photoshopped”. He believes this is occurring so American citizens will believe what these political activist groups want them to believe. He discusses several instances in American politics when political leader’s ideas or images have been “Photoshopped”, to look a certain way, positive or negative, to citizens.
This is very similar to the idea of political comedy shows like The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. These shows are made for pure entertainment, but are portrayed to look like legitimate news shows. The hosts of these shows take bits and pieces from real news sources and “Photoshop” the information to give it to the viewer in a certain light.
One example of this “Photoshopping” would be on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He took clips from each news station, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc, of all the news channels claiming to be the best news source for the ’08 election, but then he shows a clip of Fox News saying they were the best news source ever. This makes Fox News appear as arrogant and almost not as reliable as other news sources. Although some people may agree with this, we are not getting the whole picture of that statement. This could have been a joke for all we know, yet it was “Photoshopped” to look how the writers of the Daily Show wanted us to think about Fox News.
There are many other examples of ideas or images being “Photoshopped” in these entertainment shows, yet people take these entertainment news shows as reliable sources for actual news, making it hard to get all the facts straight in the information world today.
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I agree with you that politicians and news stations simply just modify their beliefs and views so that we think they are the best out there. In terms of political candidates, they all just seem to tell us what we want to hear, and make even the worst ideas sound good to us. This is all done with this "photoshopping" technique. If the topic is the war in Iraq, they will do all they can to make it sound like their plan is the best and that other plans will be the downfall of America. Along the same lines with these news shows you get the same effect. I am a fan of the Daily Show, I know that it is not a reliable source for news (in a way), but there are people out there that would see the show and think that it is better than a Fox News or MSNBC.
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