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ABSTRACT
In this article, we seek to observe how and why political TV series affect people’s political opinions. The main hypothesis is that the degree of perceived realism people attach to fictional programs is a necessary condition for a series to change political attitudes.
The study is based on an experiment in which some participants watched a political TV series with a negative tone (House of Cards), others watched a series with a positive tone (The West Wing), while a control group watched The Big Bang Theory, a non-political show. Results show that those who perceive House of Cards to be realistic became more cynical. There is also evidence of a decline in cynicism among participants who perceive The West Wing to be realistic.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The questions used to measure political cynicism are in the Appendix
2 The reason for this choice is to control for potential ceiling effects.