UNDERSTANDING THE POLITICS OF PRESS BRIEFING POWER RELATIONS THROUGH POLITICAL HUMOUR [Introduction]

O P E N I N G   A C T

Of the varied Anthropological subfields, Political Science has intimate intellectual relations with Linguistics. Scholars such as Schaffer [1997] maintain that Language is vital to the process of transforming political will into social action and that any political action is prepared, accompanied, controlled, and influenced by language. Rhetoric may be posited as the lovechild of Politics and Language considering that the intellectual DNA traits of both fields are present--- the concentration on how the correct combination of words and proper delivery has a compelling effect on persuasion.

For a political thrust on the study of language, the Political (Scientist) Anthropologist is particularly interested in the analysis of oral and written conversation with the focus on how words are strategically used in the manner that both conveys and restricts certain amounts of information. The scope of the political in this instance involves the issue of the distribution of a certain good which counts as a power: truth or information, among a particular group of persons more or less defined. Of related matter is the response of whether or not people believe the information they receive/d, and of the third order is how the people would choose to react. Perceived as a chess debate of public proportions, this often applies to the scenario of Press Briefings as well as the arse of most political humor.

American comedic institution Saturday Night Live or SNL has dedicated some airtime humourously contemplative of this matter. Of specific mention are skits Weekend Update with Seth Meyers (and Amy Pohler) and a spoof of C-SPAN [551]. Of the most notable in the genre of stand-ups is George Carlin who is presently being contended as a sociopolitical thinker. His skillful eyes and critical mind with a mastery of world issues, taboo, religion, and pop culture had delivered through a laid-back, scruffy, smoke-like trip, the most exceptional material on observational comedy with an unofficially specialized linguistic flair. 

The central theme of this paper is a technical, linguistic evaluation of how press briefing comedic material, a variation of political humor, is considered as funny and how it assists in an understanding of the politics of words. This discourse has two parts:
    (1) To examine the structure of the general context of press briefing
     exchanges exemplified in the   

    dissection of the Prince Charles Press Conference skit of episode 551 of
    Saturday Night Live; and
    (2) provide an expanded, academic explanation to George Carlin’s Brain
     Droppings presented in the National Press Club session aired in C-SPAN 
    13 May 1999. It is attempted to illustrate how the 

     material discusses the role language plays in the usage of doublespeak
     by politicians or personalities, techniques employed by the media to dig
     information, and how race and minority are labeled.

The tool for evaluation is Alan Partington’s manual on the Linguistics of Political Argument. Other media references may be briefly cited during the course of the study but as complementary examples.