Comedy as a Route to Social Change: The Effects of Satire and News on Persuasion about Syrian Refugees

Abstract

Using a pretest–posttest and delayed recontact experimental design with a national sample, this study examines shifts in U.S. public attitudes about Syrian refugees after watching a topical satirical news segment on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, compared with a CNN news segment. To investigate synergistic effects between satire and news, the design varied whether the news and comedy segments were viewed alone or in sequence (news before comedy or comedy before news). The results show that all four treatments (news only, comedy only, news-comedy, comedy-news) significantly increased support for refugees from pretest to posttest, and these effects were maintained after a 2-week delay. However, the effects were significantly greater in the three comedy conditions relative to news only. Finally, a serial mediation analysis demonstrated that perceived entertainment value is a positive mediator of comedy’s persuasive effects and serves as a buffer against negative indirect effects through message discounting and argument quality.

Notes

¹ Human subjects approval (exempt status) was granted by American University’s Institutional Review Board on September 14, 2015.

² The other items were informative, easy to understand, confusing, uninteresting, not believable, boring, and preachy. The latter five items were reverse coded before conducting the factor analysis.

³ For the reader’s interest, we conducted an alternative mediation analysis that split perceived entertainment value into two separate mediators that approximated enjoyment (“entertaining,” “funny,” “unique”) and appreciation (“inspiring,” “memorable,” “held my attention”). The alternative model was identical to Figure 1, except enjoyment and appreciation were treated as parallel mediators (replacing entertainment value), both of which predicted discounting, argument quality, and posttest attitudes. In this analysis, the comedy-only condition increased both enjoyment (B = 2.14, SE = .10, p < .001) and appreciation (B = .42, SE = .11, p < .001) relative to the news-only condition. However, enjoyment increased discounting (B = .17, SE = .04, p < .001), whereas appreciation decreased it (B = −.38, SE = .04, p < .001). Both enjoyment (B = .24, SE = .04, p < .001) and appreciation (B = .38, SE = .03, p < .001) increased perceived argument quality. Appreciation increased posttest attitudes (B = .10, SE = .03, p < .01), whereas enjoyment was unrelated to posttest attitudes (B = .001, SE = .03, p = .97). The effects of discounting and argument quality were similar to what is reported in Table 3. In turn, the results showed positive indirect effects of comedy on posttest attitudes via appreciation, via appreciation → argument quality, via appreciation → discounting → argument quality, and via enjoyment → argument quality. The results showed negative indirect effects of comedy on posttest attitudes via argument quality, via discounting → argument quality, and via enjoyment → discounting → argument quality. Thus, when disaggregating the measure of entertainment value, we see that it is the appreciation of satirical news that lowers discounting and primarily facilitates persuasion, whereas enjoyment increases discounting, consistent with prior research. Notably, however, both appreciation and enjoyment increased argument quality, which also contributed to attitude change.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (investment ID #37079), awarded to the American University School of Communication

Notes on contributors

Lauren Feldman

Lauren Feldman (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2008) is an associate professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University. Her research interests include media effects in political and science contexts.

Caty Borum Chattoo

Caty Borum Chattoo (M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1998) is Director of the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University, and Assistant Professor at the American University School of Communication. Also a documentary producer, her research interests include communication and social change, the societal influence of documentary, entertainment and comedy, and the role of creativity in social change.