Is Comedy Central Replacing CNN? Investigating the Political Influences of Late Night Comedy in the Modern Media Environment Öffentlichkeit

Abstract

The modern media environment provides consumers the autonomy to choose between a seemingly endless array of TV and media options. Subsequently, consumers disinterested in political affairs hold the freedom to avoid traditional hard news outlets and replace this consumption with either alternative news programs or apolitical media. Late Night Comedy, now a political, partisan genre in the modern media landscape, holds substantive news value as many Americans turn to it for viable news consumption. I pose the question: Who is consuming late night content, and how does this exposure impact their understanding and perceptions of American politics? Through a survey experiment conducted on America-based MTurk adults, this thesis descriptively and empirically investigates the type of consumers watching both traditional hard news media and late night comedy and probes the ways in which exposure to candidate interviews on both news sources impact the variables of information recall, candidate favorability, candidate likability, and specific trait associations. The findings of this study suggest that last night viewers are more politically interested, with cross tabulations also suggesting they are younger and lean Democrat. Furthermore, this study provides evidence for the benefit of using late night campaign interviews to promote political candidacy as they bolster perceptions of likability, charm, warmth, perception soft strong leadership, perceived issue effectiveness, and overall information recall. Other than information recall, this study found no statically significant political understanding benefits from traditional hard news exposure. 

Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………….............…….……………………………………….....…..……..….....…..………1

Chapter 1. Contextualizing The Modern Media Environment: The Evolution of Late Night Comedy..………………....…..…......…………5

Chapter 2. A Descriptive Exploration of Contemporary Media Consumption Trends…….…...........................................................…17

Chapter 3. An Empirical Exploration of the Political Impacts of Hard News and Late Night Comedy Viewership………...............….….44

Chapter 4. Conclusion.……………………………………………....................................................................................................………78

Appendix……………………………………………………………………………………................…………...................................................….85 

Bibliography.….….……………………………………………………………....................................................………………….....………….......98 

Tables and Figures:

Table 2-1: Survey Demographics………………………………………………………......................................…………………………………......29

Table 2-2: Distribution of Respondents Watching Each Genre Type Frequent and Infrequently.……………………………..…………....…..33

Table 2-3: Cross Tabulations of Ideology. Ideological Intensity, Party. Partisanship, Political Interest, and Political Knowledge, Age,

Gender, and Race By Frequency of Apolitical, Late Night Comedy, and Hard News TV Consumption..…....………….…........…..............34

Table 2-4: Logistic Regression Analysis of the Association Between Political Interest and Political Knowledge and Frequency of

Apolitical, Late Night Comedy, and Hard News Consumption.………………………………………………………….......….........................….37

Table 3-1: Demographic Distribution Between Treatment Assignment..…………................................................……………….....……..60

Table 3-2: Cross Tabulations of Treatment Assignment by Information Recall, Perceptions of Fitness for Office, Perceptions of Strong

Leadership, Perceptions of Issue Effectiveness, Perceptions of Warmth, and Perceptions of Charm…………..……………...................…..65

Table 3-3: Mean Scores for Favorability Thermometer, Likelihood to Vote for Booker, and Likelihood to Hang Out with Booker Between

Treatment Assignment.………...................................................................................................................................................…..66 

Table 3-4: Linear Regression of the Relationship between Treatment Assignment and Variables of Favorability, Likelihood to Vote for

Booker, Likelihood to Hangout with Booker, Information Recall, and Perceived Issue Effectiveness……….......................................…...68 

Table 3-5: Logistic Regression of the Relationship between Treatment Assignment and Information Recall and Perceived

Effectiveness.................................................................................................................................................................................71

Table 3-6: Logistic Regression of the Relationship between Treatment Assignment and Perceptions of Fitness for Office, Strong Leadership,

Warmth, and Charm.….……............................................................................................................................................................73

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Political Science
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, General Mass Communications
Stichwort	Survey Experiment Media Environment Late Night Comedy
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Gillespie, Andra , Emory University
Committee Members	Abramowitz, Alan, Emory University Schreiber, Michele, Emory University

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