Spring Podcast

In an article accusing comedy website The Onion of being the most effective Marxist propaganda machine in America, a journalist reflected that ‘from King Lear’s Fool to Samuel Clemens, humor is often the cover by which the radical reaches the mainstream’. From the Chartist usage of seditious, mocking cartoons to Da’esh’s bizarre Twitter trolling of the White House, satire has been long utilised as a tool to ridicule the established order. What is the state of satire in Britain today? What does the profusion of new online satirical rags from the Daily Mash to Newsthump tell us about our modern media environment? What role does Satire play today in defining the left, critiquing power and imagining tomorrow? Speakers- DAVID STUBBS, author & editor at The Daily Mash, recent author of ‘Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany’ (Faber & Faber, 2014) ANGELA NAGLE, journalist and researcher Recorded at the Spring conference 2016 Saturday May 21st 2016 People’s History Museum, Left Bank, Manchest