The Effect of Television Viewing on Adolescents' Civic Participation: Political Efficacy as a Mediating Mechanism

Abstract

Pundits, parents, and scholars express concern about youth attention to late-night political comedy shows, such as The Daily Show, suggesting that such viewing is deleterious for an active, efficacious citizenry. Yet as civic participation declines among adults, it appears to be growing among adolescents. This study assessed the effects of television viewing on high school students' civic participation. Results demonstrate that viewing late-night TV and local TV news had a positive, significant effect on civic participation, and this relationship was mediated by political efficacy. Implications for the study of late-night TV and applications to research on political socialization are discussed.

Notes

This research was funded primarily by The Columbus Foundation through Kids Voting, Central Ohio. Supplementary funding was provided by the School of Communication and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at The Ohio State University. The authors would like to thank Suzanne Helmick of Kids Voting, Central Ohio and Dwight Groce, Keith Bossard, Saundra Brennan, and Susan Martin of the Columbus Public School District, as well as Dr. William P. Eveland, Jr. and Jessica Flanders for assistance in the gathering of these data. This report is a product solely of the authors; the funding sources and those who assisted in data gathering bear no responsibility for the contents of this manuscript.

This article was submitted and accepted under the editorship of Donald G. Godfrey.

^a sample size = 187;

^b sample size = 188.

^a sample size = 187;

^b sample size = 188.

¹The lottery-type incentive was a one-in-one-hundred chance at winning $100.

²There were no data available from the school district on average course grades for high school students.

³The breakdown of year-in-school percentages is in part influenced by the year in which social studies courses were required.

⁴Available for download at http://www.quantpsy.org/.

⁵Bootstrapping = 1000 re-samples.

⁶Although, see Young & Tisinger (2006) for an example of political communication research on the effects of such humor in adult samples.