Yuyao You - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Provide an example where humor was used in digital/networked media to make a serious political or cultural argument. Was it effective?

"The Daily Show (titled The Daily Show with Jon Stewart since 1999) is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central and, in Canada, The Comedy Network. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998. Jon Stewart took over as host in January 1999, making the show more strongly focused on politics and the national media, in contrast with the pop culture focus during Kilborn's tenure. It is currently the longest-running program on Comedy Central, and has won 18 Primetime Emmy Awards.
Describing itself as a fake news program, The Daily Show draws its comedy and satire from recent news stories, political figures, media organizations, and often, aspects of the show itself. The show typically opens with a long monologue from Jon Stewart relating to recent headlines and frequently features exchanges with one or more of several correspondents, who adopt absurd or humorously exaggerated takes on current events against Stewart's straight man persona. The final segment is devoted to a celebrity interview, with guests ranging from actors and musicians to nonfiction authors and political figures.
The program is popular among young audiences, with organizations such as the Pew Research Center suggesting that 80% of regular viewers are between 18 and 49, and that 10% of the audience watch the show for its news headlines, 2% for in-depth reporting, and 43% for entertainment, compared with 64% who watch CNN for the news headlines. Critics have chastised Stewart for not conducting sufficiently hard-hitting interviews with his political guests, some of whom he may have lampooned in previous segments. Stewart and other Daily Show writers have responded to such criticism by saying that they do not have any journalistic responsibility and that as comedians their only duty is to provide entertainment. Stewart's appearance on the CNN show Crossfire parodied this debate, where he chastised the CNN production and hosts for not conducting informative and current interviews on a news network."(The Daily Show From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Show)

Actually I didn't know The Daily Show until when I saw a short video(of course with Chinese subtitle) cut out from an integrated show which Jon Stewart satirized that China had sent a spacecraft to the moon. 

The video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AjsHDAmfhQ (The one I have seen is longer than this but it can only be streamed within Mainland China)I thought that was really funny and then I searched more about The Daily Show. But the truth is that whatever he says or how frequently the audience laugh will not cause any influence to the Chinese politics because this is only an American TV show. No matter how big the influence it has cause to American politics, I do not think it can affect China at all. Because China is actually still a feudal country. Moreover, it can not do influence to any other countries except America. However, I consider that the influence made by The Daily Show is very little. Firstly, the host is not a politician and he can not affect the policy directly. Secondly, it may affect some people's attitude on something but people's attitude is usually not a problem. If it is in China or North Korea, I don't even think that the government will let it be on as a TV program. People's view is absolutely nothing connected with the politic in China or North Korea. By way of conclusion, I think that The Daily Show can just probably cause a little influence when it make a serious political or culture argument. That's to say, not effective.