LibGuides: Satirical News in Traditional Media and Online: eResources

Satirical Comedy

In the following video produced by satirical company Funny or Die, Kristen Bell satirizes Mary Poppins and sings about the need to raise the federal minimum wage.

Web Resources

Here are just a few of the free sources that can be found on the Internet.

News satire
This Wikipedia page gives a good overview of news satire, including sections on television and online news satire.
Facebook hopes tiny labels on posts will stop users confusing satire with reality
This 2021 article by The Verge discusses Facebook's attempts to curb confusion by adding labels to posts created by satirical outlets, including The Onion and The Babylon Bee.
The Great Satirical-News Scam of 2014
This article by New Republic discusses online satirical news websites, and highlights several instances where the fooled both the public-at-large as well as professional journalists.
The Onion Thinks Facebook’s Proposed ‘Satire’ Tag Is For ‘Dipsh–‘s
Even MTV could not resist covering Facebook's plan to use add satire tags to posts. This article mainly focuses on The Onion's reaction to the plan.
Politifact
Run by the Tampa Bay Times, this site is a great resource of fact-checking political stories. They have written several good pieces helping to make sense of stories that started at satire sites and were accepted as real.
Real or Satire?
Enter a URL into this specialized search engine and find out whether the site you are looking at is a legitimate source or not. This site does a good job of determining what is "real" or not, but it does not hurt to learn how to do that for yourself.
Satire's Role in Current Events--Lesson Plan
PBS Newshour Extra provides and archive filled with lesson plans for educators. This plan, suggested for students grades 9-12, is geared toward the following objectives: Become familiar with the underlying concepts behind satire; Analyze the interaction between satire and current events; Apply their knowledge of satire and the news to create their own satirical pieces.
Satirical Content as an Information Literacy Problem
This is a blog post written to accompany this guide. It explains some of the problems that can arise when the writer hides their satirical intent or the reader fails to identify the item as satirical.
Snopes.com
This site is the go-to for people looking for more information or to debunk urban legends. Naturally, they often cover Internet news stories that were mistaken as real, such as the one about Ebola zombies in 2014.
I Write Fake News. I'm Not Part of the Problem. | Matt Daniel | TEDxYouth@RVA
In this video, Matt Daniel breaks down the differences between "fake news" and satire. While they may sound similar, they are vastly different.
Satire vs. Fake News
An interview conducted by the University of Toronto Magazine on the topic of "fake" vs satirical news. Aaron Hagey-Mackay, who was interviewed, previously worked for The Beaverton, a well-known satirical news website.

Academic Journal Articles

These are just a few of the articles available on this topic available by searching Discovery@Kent State or the databases.

"The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in the Colbert Report"
This article by Heather L. LaMarre, Kristen D. Landreville, and Michael A. Beam explores people's reaction to the political satire show The Colbert Report. They found that a person's political belief highly affects their understanding of the show.
"Parody and Satire in the 2008 Canadian Federal Election: Reading the Rick Mercer Report"
James Onusko that satirists make an important contribution to the political process in Canada.
"Political Satire as an Index of Press Freedom: A Review of Political Satire in the Iranian Press during the 2000s"
This article by Mahmud Farjami argues that the way Iran treats their satirists correlates to the overall journalistic freedom in Iran.
"Young Voter Perceptions of Political Satire as Persuasion: A Focus on Perceived Influence, Persuasive Intent, and Message Strength"
Lance Holbert, et al. attempt to empirically analyze the effectiveness of satire on young voters in the United States.

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