From the daily show to last week tonight: A quantitative analysis of discursive integration in satirical television news

Satirical news shows constitute an innovative hybrid genre that mixes regular news and fiction. The discursive integration hypothesis posits that the defining characteristic of satirical news shows is that news and fiction elements are integrated such that boundaries between the preexisting genres have blurred. The current study quantitatively tests this hypothesis on both long-running American shows such as The Daily Show and more recent shows such as Last Week Tonight. We collected transcripts of fifteen satirical news shows, eleven regular news shows, and fourteen fiction shows from 2018 (9,824,249 words). Transcripts were automatically tagged for over fifty linguistic features to identify register dimensions, patterns in linguistic features unique to genres, which we used to determine the presence of discursive integration. Findings revealed that two-thirds of satirical news shows were indeed characterized by discursive integration (which we labeled “complete hybrids”), while one-third manifested through the already existing hybrid genre of opinionated news (which we labeled “hybrid-genre echoes”). These two categories of shows demonstrate the importance of genre hybridity for defining satirical news across different shows

Humor in satirical news headlines: Analyzing humor form and content, and their relations with audience engagement

Satirical news presents a critique of current affairs through humor. Previous research suggests that satirical news can have different humor forms (e.g. linguistic strategies) and humor contents (e.g. news topics, targets), and that such differences in humor characteristics can influence audience effects of satirical news. This paper extends this research by analyzing these relationships across different types of outlets in a content analysis (Study 1) and audience engagement analysis (Study 2). In Study 1, we compared humor forms and contents of satirical news headlines posted on Facebook (N = 5,775) between outlets from different countries (United States and the Netherlands) with different political leanings (liberal and conservative). Findings showed that the coded humor forms reasonably consistently characterized satirical news across outlet types, while humor contents did not. In Study 2, we examined associations of the humor characteristics with the number of likes and comments the Facebook posts received. Results were often outlet-specific, especially in case of the coded humor contents. This paper thus reveals that when satirical news’ audience effects differ by humor characteristics, this may be attributed less to differences in humor form, and more to differences in humor content.</p

Objectives and Methods of Iron Chelation Therapy

Recent developments in the understanding of the molecular control of iron homeostasis provided novel insights into the mechanisms responsible for normal iron balance. However in chronic anemias associated with iron overload, such mechanisms are no longer sufficient to offer protection from iron toxicity, and iron chelating therapy is the only method available for preventing early death caused mainly by myocardial and hepatic damage. Today, long-term deferoxamine (DFO) therapy is an integral part of the management of thalassemia and other transfusion-dependent anemias, with a major impact on well-being and survival. However, the high cost and rigorous requirements of DFO therapy, and the significant toxicity of deferiprone underline the need for the continued development of new and improved orally effective iron chelators. Within recent years more than one thousand candidate compounds have been screened in animal models. The most outstanding of these compounds include deferiprone (L1); pyridoxal isonicotinoyl hydrazone (PIH) and; bishydroxy- phenyl thiazole. Deferiprone has been used extensively as a substitute for DFO in clinical trials involving hundreds of patients. However, L1 treatment alone fails to achieve a negative iron balance in a substantial proportion of subjects. Deferiprone is less effective than DFO and its potential hepatotoxicity is an issue of current controversy. A new orally effective iron chelator should not necessarily be regarded as one displacing the presently accepted and highly effective parenteral drug DFO. Rather, it could be employed to extend the scope of iron chelating strategies in a manner analogous with the combined use of medications in the management of other conditions such as hypertension or diabetes. Coadministration or alternating use of DFO and a suitable oral chelator may allow a decrease in dosage of both drugs and improve compliance by decreasing the demand on tedious parenteral drug administration. Combined use of DFO and L1 has already been shown to result in successful depletion of iron stores in patients previously failing to respond to single drug therapy, and to lead to improved compliance with treatment. It may also result in a “shuttle effect” between weak intracellular chelators and powerful extracellular chelators or exploit the entero-hepatic cycle to promote fecal iron excretion. All of these innovative ways of chelator usage are now awaiting evaluation in experimental models and in the clinical setting