Satire, Punch Lines, and the Nightly News: Untangling Media Effects on Political Participation

This study differentiates the effects of satire from late-night comedy on political participation.  I found this intriguing as research often considers satire and late-night comedy shows the same.

Traditional TV news is often labeled as “hard news”, whereas late-night comedy is labeled as “soft news”. Yet, these labels are one-dimensional and political entertainment in actuality isn’t (Hoffman & Young, 2011). According to Holbert, there is one in which the audience can expect the content to be primarily political (as in a political drama) or politics is secondary (as in reality TV), and the explicit (e.g., interview shows) or implicit (e.g., a sitcom) nature of the messages. It is in the ‘‘implied’’ and ‘‘political as primary’’ category where traditional satire, such as The Daily Show can be found (Holbert, 2005; see also Feldman & Young, 2008) (as cited in Hoffman & Young, 2011). Moreover, The Daily Showand The Colbert Reportutilize satire and parody ‘‘to invite its audience to examine, evaluate, and re-situate the genre and its practices’’ (Baym, 2005, p. 269; see also Young, 2007) (as cited in Hoffman & Young, 2011). Furthermore, viewers of The Daily Showare distinct from viewers of the network late-night shows, particularly in news viewing and political knowledge (Pew Research Center, 2008; Young & Tisinger, 2006) (as cited in Hoffman & Young, 2011). Also, the jokes on late-night shows cannot be too complicated and that the host cannot appear to know more than the audience as opposed to the jokes on comedy news, which require more effortful processing (as cited in Niven, Lichter, & Amundson, 2003, p. 121) (as cited in Hoffman & Young, 2011).In traditional late-night comedy, the jokes tend to be focused on the personal traits of public officials, and are remarkably consistent with each other (Niven et al., 2003; Young, 2004) (as cited in Hoffman & Young). According to Cao and Brewer (2008), viewing late-night comedy was not associated with participation, although viewing other types of political comedy was (as cited in Hoffman & Young, 2011). In addition, research has found that exposure to The Daily Show can increase viewers’ perceived internal political efficacy – that is the belief in one’s own competency and the feeling that political and social change is possible (Campbell, Gurin, & Miller, 1954) (as cited in Hoffman & Young, 2011). Hence, political efficacy has been found to determine a myriad of political behaviors because it provides incentive to participate in politics (Abramson & Aldrich, 1982) (as cited in Hoffman & Young, 2011). There is evidence that political entertainment is more successful in increasing viewers’ efficacy in comparison to traditional TV news. This is due to the inclusion of humor, which requires more effortful processing and the ability to integrate information from long-term memory into working memory (Young, 2008) (as cited in Hoffman & Young, 2011).

Drawing upon previous research and data, the study ended up with three hypotheses and used university students for testing them. Firstly, the link between political satire or parody and political participation (H1). Secondly, the link between traditional TV news and political participation (H2). Lastly, the link between late-night comedy and political participation (H3) (Hoffman & Young, 2011).

The writers found a significant and positive indirect effect for both satire or parody and traditional TV news on participation through the mediator of efficacy . However, this was not the case for traditional late-night comedy. The results suggest that consuming satire or parody and traditional TV news affect political participation, at least in part through political efficacy. As such, H1 and H2 were supported, but H3 was not (Hoffman & Young, 2011). Late-night comedy isn’t as effective in increasing political participation as TV news and satirical news, because of priming – which increases the association between a belief and the intention toward performing a behavior (Fishbein & Yzer, 2003) and occurs when heightened salience influences subsequent evaluations of a particular issue (Scheufele, 2000; Tversky & Kahneman, 1973) (as cited in Hoffman & Young, 2011). Late-night TV relies on punchline jokes and caricatures of public figures instead of the issue. Thus, limiting the individuals understanding of politics and political participation. Moreover, traditional TV news and satire require background knowledge and a cognitive effort in order to get the information (TV news) and “the joke” (satire), whereas late-night comedy require minimal effort as their jokes are superficial (Hoffman & Young, 2011).

Overall, these results suggest that late-night comedy and satire or parody programming cannot simply be lumped together as ‘‘soft news’’ or even as ‘‘political entertainment.’’ At the very least, we can conclude that satire or parody might be more similar to traditional television news not only in format (Fox et al., 2007), but perhaps also in effects (Hoffman & Young, 2011).

Bibliography

Hoffman, . L. H. & Young, D. G., 2011. Satire, Punch Lines, and the Nightly News: Untangling Media Effects on Political Participation. Communication Research Reports, vol.28(no.2), pp. 159 – 168.