Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery. Or Is It? The Effects of Exposure to SNL Parody on Perceptions of The View

ABSTRACT

Research shows that viewers evaluate politicians more critically after exposure to parody programing. How do viewers evaluate journalistic content when a popular variety program parodies news programing? Analyzing data from a controlled experiment (N = 342; September 2019), the research considers the added effect of exposure to parody from the US variety show, Saturday Night Live (SNL), on evaluations of The View, focusing on assessments of the political talk program’s perceived entertainment value, perceived informativeness, and appropriateness as a source of political news. The results suggest that being parodied is not the sincerest form of flattery for political talk programing but rather, exposure to SNL parody primes participants to rate The View as less entertaining, informative, and appropriate as a source of political news. The added effect of viewing original content from The View directly followed by SNL parody is minimal when compared against exposure to SNL alone. The intertextual take or affective context effect on The View that results from exposure to SNL parody is discussed along with the reality that rather than act as simply comic relief, satire may actually be doing more to engage viewers in a more thoughtful assessment of contemporary journalism and political talk programing.

KEYWORDS:

• Entertainment value
• informativeness
• political satire
• political talk programing
• Saturday Night Live
• The View

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There were slight nuances in how viewers evaluated the clips featuring an interview guest vs. a discussion of vaccines (e.g., viewers found the interview clip to have a slightly higher perceived entertainment value, while the issue clip was evaluated as slightly more informative and appropriate as a source of political news). The decision was made to combine the conditions into three larger groups (View only, SNL only, View + SNL) to enhance the research’s generalizability and validity.

2 Subjects were asked to indicate whether they had seen any of the video stimuli content before. Across the study, just under 6% indicated that they had seen any of the video content before. There were no notable significant differences in outcome variables for those who had seen vs. had not seen any of the video stimuli content.