Restoring sanity through comic relief: Parody television viewers and political outlook

ABSTRACT

Parody news programs regale viewers with satirical, witty, and humorous exposés of the political world and news coverage, but they have also been criticized for creating cynicism and political disengagement. This study found that parody news viewers are self-efficacious and more politically active than viewers of CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, or broadcast television news. Moreover, reliance on parody news shows does not lead to political polarization or government distrust.

Notes

¹ Announcements were also placed on a researcher-created Facebook group called “Facebook Users and Political Polarization” and on existing groups of a variety of political philosophies. The authors posted status updates announcing the survey with a request to share the update with others. Survey announcements were also posted on academia.edu, LinkedIn, and the University of Texas LinkedIn group. Respondents were solicited on Twitter and asked to retweet the survey URL. Respondents were contacted through searches such as “Twitter and Politics,” “Facebook and Politics,” and hashtags on leading Republican, Democrat, and Libertarian political figures.

² Cooperation Rate: As defined by the American Association for Public Opinion Research “Standard Definitions”: “The proportion of all cases interviewed of all eligible units ever contacted.” The survey was housed on MRInterview, a web-based survey site. MRInterview tracks the number of people who clicked on the survey link from various sources and the number who actually completed the survey. MRInterview calculated a cooperation rate of 27.8% for this survey.

³ Contacted a national, state, or local government official about an issue; contributed money to a political candidate or a party or any political organization or cause; been an active member of a group that tries to influence public policy or government; worked with fellow citizens on such activities as telephoning about an issue or urged voters to go to the polls to solve a problem in their community; attended a political meeting on local, town, or school affairs, or attended a political rally or speech; signed or distributed a petition; had a face-to-face discussion about a political issue, cause, or candidate in which they tried to persuade someone to take their point of view; talked to someone to follow or report on a political event as it was happening.

⁴ The trust and self-efficacy items were previously used in American National Election Studies (ANES) conducted by the University of Michigan. ANES has used the same battery of trust and efficacy question for more than 50 years, and therefore they have become the standards for measuring trust and efficacy (e.g., Craig, Niemi, & Silver, 1990). Moreover, American National Election Studies (http://www.electionstudies.org/resources/papers/reference_library.htm) has identified more than 6,500 studies that have relied on its measures.