Laughter, Outrage and Resistance

The rise of candidate, then president, Donald Trump coincided with a near-total turnover of late-night hosts, as well as the additions of late-night shows in new formats. The result has changed the paradigm of late-night talk show hosting, in which each host or segment must weigh the political leanings of their audiences and their personal convictions as they choose how to poke fun at or pontificate on the issues of the day. The ways each host has navigated this new terrain of outrage and resistance in their comedy offers fascinating insights into hosts’ abilities to use new techniques to continue to inform, inflame, entertain and satirize, all while shaping their audience’s knowledge about their world. This volume examines the communication strategies, informed and influenced by their individual experiences, employed by the hosts as they seek to handle Trump and the fast-moving news cycle that trails in his wake. Examining topics as varied as politics as the carnivalesque, race and gender privilege, satire as education and the blurring lines between satire and journalism, this volume provides a starting examination of the rhetoric, humor and political chops these hosts have employed while they use their platforms to inform, entertain or resist.