Acquisition of Current-Events Knowledge From Political Satire Programming: An Experimental Approach

Abstract

This project presents the results of an online experiment exploring the over-time effects of exposure to political satire and cable news on college students' acquisition of three different forms of political knowledge. Results indicate that subjects in the political satire condition and the news condition experienced significant gains in knowledge at Time 2 compared to the third control group. These gains occurred in the context of current affairs knowledge, even when controlling for prior knowledge and media exposure. Neither experimental condition experienced increases in civics or candidate knowledge compared to the control group. Implications for the potential of political humor as a source of political information are discussed.

Notes

^a n = 76.

^a n = 79.

^a n = 80.

^dThese tests were also run with candidate biographic questions and the issue question separately, with the same nonsignificant results. As a result, the items were kept as a scale in following analyses.

*p < .05.

**p < .01.