“The Tattlers' Tattle”: Fake News, Linguistic National Intimacy, and New Media in Romania

Abstract

This article analyzes the successful Romanian weekly satire show Cronica Cârcotaşilor (The Tattlers' Tattle) in the context of the televisual landscape of postsocialist Romania. I argue that given the widespread skepticism toward the unfulfilled promises of the post-socialist transition and the European Union (EU) accession, the show's ability to curb Romanians' disaffection from politics is remarkable. Positioning Romanians as active television viewers and gatekeepers against practices of manipulation and incorrect uses of the Romanian language, the show fosters discursive contestation and activates a desire for political engagement. My discussion introduces the notion of "national linguistic intimacy" to evoke how the show strives to naturalize the affective ties with the national community by reusing the flavor of Romanian comedic and satirical literature and encouraging language play.

Poking Fun at the Transformation: Postsocialist TV Satire in the 1990s

“…Writing about the Romanian news satire Cronica Cârcotasilor (The Tattlers' Tattle), broadcast since 2000, Alice Bardan observes that like in the case of American news satire programmes, the aim of the show is "to expose how media strive to divert people's attention away from real political debate toward the performative dimension of political life." 2 The two shows discussed in this article display similar aims, pointing to common characteristics of the news satire format East and West. Yet, as Anikó Imre argues in her discussion of the Hungarian satirical programme Heti Hetes (The Weekly Seven), postsocialist satirical formats also draw on longer traditions of satire entertainment of the socialist and even pre-socialist periods and can thus be seen as "a linchpin between late socialist and late capitalist forms of political satire."…”

Lords of the Air: A Cultural Analysis of the Bulgarian TV Show Gosporadi na Efira

“…A thorough review of the literature underscored the dearth of attention to this TV format in post-communist societies. In spite of the popularity of news parody formats on a global level, 4 there is only one study on the effects of humor in Hungary 5 and another one on the effects of a fake news show in Romania, 6 both published as part of a 2012 special issue of Popular Communication. After a ten-year gap, the present study is an attempt to continue the scholarly exploration of television satire in a post-communist context.…”

Infoentretenimiento satírico en México: el caso de Brozo, el Payaso Tenebroso

“…Some critics have called these programs "neo-modern journalism" (Baym, 2005) or new types of "public journalism" (Faina, 2012), while others accuse it of promoting cynicism rather than civic engagement (Hart & Hartelius, 2007). Beyond the intense debate about the real effects in the audience (Amarasingam, 2011;Baumgartner & Morris, 2006;Feldman, 2013;Holbert, Lambe, Dudo & Carlton, 2007;Cao, 2010;Young, 2013), the existence and success of international cases of satirical Infotainment in countries as diverse as Australia (Harrington, 2012), Romania (Bardan, 2012), Germany (Kleinen -von Königslöw & Keel, 2012), Italy (Cosentino, 2012), India (Kumar, 2012) or Iran (Semati, 2012) give an account that this hybrid genre is globally consolidated as one of the main ways of political communication. Despite the importance of the global phenomenon of satirical Infotainment , works on Latin American cases are still emerging.…”