Real News - Fake Cynicism?.pdf

8/11/2019 Real News - Fake Cynicism?.pdf

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Media is a major subject of concern when related to public opinion. Because media play a crucial

role in forming ones values, the content it broadcasts may have an influence on ones political

dispositions, and therefore have major political consequences.

Some critics fear that mass media actually influence public opinion toward acceptance of the

economic system and the domination of elite (Herman & Chomsky 1988). Therefore, they argue

that alternative and critical media are necessary to counter the influence of such opinion

mechanisms.

But is critical attitude always good?

The emergence of The Daily Show, a satirical news show whose primary material are political

news, since 1999, has been one of the most notable phenomenons in U.S. political coverage. The

Daily Showhas been highly influential and praised for its coverage, especially during presidential

campaign.

But, in a very critical article, Hart (2007) defines Jon Stewart, the most prominent political

comedian in the US, as a political sinner . According to him, Stewart increases cynicism,

conveys a simplistic view about politics, and builds a business around it. He creates a religion that

gives the illusion that there is a separation between the Evil Washington and the Good people/

One should ask whether these accusations are accurate. If this is the case, The Daily Showwould

have a rather ambiguous status. Its position of democracy watchdog would be undermined, and

citizens would need a good amount of critical attitude when watching it.

In this paper, a relationship between exposure to The Daily Show, and more generally to late-nightpolitical satire (LNPS) will be investigated. A definition of political trust and LNPS will be given,

along with a theoretical discussion on the potential effects of LNPS on its viewers, relying on more

general theories about media exposure. Two hypothesis will be asserted, and one question about the

scope of these hypotheses will be asked. Then, results of 6 studies will be compared and discussed.

A concluding section will further discuss all the consequences of LNPS exposure, along with

conclusive remarks about the study, its significance, its limits, and its inclusion in a more general

research context.


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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Political trust an be defined as a basic evaluative orientation toward the government founded on

how well the government is operating according to people's normative expectations

(Hetherington

1998).

Recent research has shown that political trust has a very positive impact on the political

system. For instance, it facilitates the action of government and officials, and enables political

power to make changes (Hetherington 1998). Hence political distrust would worsen a more

dysfunctional political system.

Media exposure and negativity

It is then crucial to know what are the factors that potentially increase or decrease political trust.

One of them is media exposure. The impact of media on political socialization is well-known. It

considerably influences adolescents, and has a strong relationship with adult political participation

(Hoffman 2009). Therefore, one could expect that studying media effects is crucial to understand

the variations of political trust.

In 1976, Robinson coined the term

videomalaise

. According to him, television is

negative to democracy. Television is dictated by rankings and based on images, and therefore must

tell spectacular stories. Then television always focuses on the negative side of information, such as

scandals and catastrophes. This create an hostile environment in which everyone is antagonized and

suspected. As a result, distrust increases.

As of today, researchers tend to think that the relationship between trust and TV exposure

depends on the type of program watched, and its level of negativity (Guggenheim 2011). We can list

some signs, factors and symptoms of negativity. If a program is aggressive, such as CNNs defunct

debate program Crossfire, that assimilated politics to sport or spectacle, political trust tend to

decrease (Forgette 2006). The same can be seen when there is a large focus on personality traits

instead of policy issues (e.g. Brooks 2007).

What this means is that, when it comes to influence on political trust, all programs are not

equal. Therefore, it could be useful to detect the most negative programs to analyse their indirect

influence on democracy.


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Late-night political satire (LNPS)

One of the most salient example of negativity on television is late-night political satire (LNPS).

LNPS is today incarnated by two shows: The Daily Show(TDS) and its spin-off The Colbert Report

(TCR), broadcasted on weeknights on a comedy cable channel. TDS is a parody of a news bulletin,

while TCR is a parody of an opinion program hosted by a pundit such as The OReilly Factor.

This type of program tends, in general, to convey more negativity than other types. Unlike

opinion programs, satire attacks the political system indistinctly, and with less rules (usage of

personality traits, name-calling, heavy criticism of media, etc.). Because of its parodic nature and

the smaller place it allows to political promotion, satire is less casual than other late-night comedy

shows, such as The Tonight Show. Satire conveys more criticism than weekly programs such as

Saturday Night Live. Satire is almost instantaneous, and therefore harder. More generally, thespecificity of LNPS is its ressemblance to cable news programming, which inherently leads to

greater disobedience toward news media and the political system.

Therefore, LNPS is inherently different from other media types. It is also extremely popular.

Its audience doubled in 10 years (see Figure 1). Its cultural significance is vast (Kakutani 2008,

Baumgartner 2006). It has received scholar interest, with some researchers praying TDS as a

reinvention of political journalism (Baym 2005) or TCR as a notable philosophical method

(Schiller 2009). It is especially influential because its core audience is mostly young people (seeTable 1). Because media stimuli acquired at a young age have a structuring role in peoples political

dispositions, LNPS is a crucial media type to investigate.

Figure 1: Percentage of viewers of late-

night political satire

(Watch regularly or sometimes)

Source : Pew 2012

10

15

20

25

30

2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012

The Daily ShowThe Colbert Report


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disillusioned about politics, and then less prone to manipulation. However, if political trust is a very

positive attitude for democracy (Hetherington 1998), LNPS could be a danger for democracy.

Researchers such as Hart (2007) have criticized LNPS for its political heresy and its

threat to democracy. According to them, LNPS implies that the political system can never be

reformed and changed, and that the best position is Jon Stewarts, defining his job as

throwing

spitballs at the back of the room (Kakutani 2008). LNPS could also oversimplify political matters.

Then, it would imply that dysfunctions in American political system would be due mainly to the

incompetence or the personality of politicians and not due to structural, more complex factors, or

due to the American people (Baumgartner 2006).

Therefore, one could see a decrease in political engagement, because viewers would tend to

interpret a joking, limited coverage of politics as real political messages. This is even more

concerning when it is known that LNPSis mostly watched by younger audiences, and that therefore

distrust could be a major element of their political socialization and their political learning

(Hoffman 2009). Therefore, if late-night political satire increases cynicism, does it trigger a

decrease in political engagement? More generally, is it bad to be cynical?

As any normative subject, it is complicated to draw an analysis that is both objective and

comprehensive. (One could for instance argue that an optimal democracy is not necessarily a

system in which turnout and peoples participation are maximal.) Therefore, the choice will be

made to limit the scope of this question to political participation and willingness to vote, since it isgenerally seen as a sign of a healthy democracy.

RQ1: If late-night political satire increases cynicism, does it trigger a decrease in political

participation?

This question is harder to answer, since only one study has dealt with the relationship between

LNPS, cynicism and political participation (Hoffman 2009). Its results will be presented in theresults section. In the conclusion, there will be a larger discussion on the other indirect effects that

LNPS can have on political participation.


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RESULTS

H1: Political trust

5 studies have addressed the subject. Among them, 3 tend to prove the hypothesis correct with

convincing evidence (Baumgartner 2006, Tsafti 2009, Guggenheim 2011).

Baumgartner & Morris (2006) used an experimental method. They worked on a sample of 732

college students (they justified this non-representativeness by the greater interest of studying the

effect of LNPS on younger people). Participants were divided in three groups. The first (n=245) was

exposed to a clip of TDS about the 2004 race between Bush and Kerry. The second (n=198) was

exposed to a clip of CBS Evening News coverage from the same date. The third (n=289) was not

exposed to any video. According to Baumgartner & Morris, the two clips shared a lot of common


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contents, and a same critical tone, because network campaign coverage is mainly the description of

mistakes of the contenders. The results presented here are based on the posttest survey.

The study shows that viewers of TDS have more negative views toward both candidates, and

especially toward the lesser-known candidate Kerry (see Table 2). Faith in American system (coded

by the sentence

I have faith in the U.S. electoral system

) is also lower when exposed to TDS.

Guggenheim, Kwak and Cambell (2011) conducted a more ambitious study than Baumgartner.

First of all, they made a distinction between distrust in politicians and systemic cynicism.

The first was coded by agreement with the following statements : Politicians dont realize how

badly they come across, Our elected leaders dont have very good personalities, Elected

officials dont tell us what they really think , Most politicians are corrupt , and Most

politicians can be trusted, which was reverse coded. The second was coded by Corruption is

always present in American politics and No matter which party is in power, it seems like our

government is run by a few big interests.

Secondly, they compared the effect of LNPS with other nontraditional news such as comedy

talk show (Late Night, The Tonight Show) ad cable opinion news (The OReilly Factor). The criteria

was frequent exposure to these shows They used 777 responses to a mail survey that come from a

representative sample of the US population.

Their results tend to partially confirm H1, since satirical news is significantly related to more

systemic cynicism, even though distrust in politicians is insignificantly correlated (see Table 3).


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Tsafti, Tukachinsky & Peri (2009) conducted their study in Isral after the Israli-Lebanon war,

which was a military defeat for Isrel, which failed to destroy Hezbollah, and showed the internal

weaknesses of Israeli political system and army. The regime experienced very low trust ratings,

therefore the researchers wanted to know if this was due to media exposure, and of which media

type.

They used a sample of 512 Israeli Jews contacted by telephone. Here, the show that was

studied wasEretz Nehederet, similar to The Daily Showwith a sensibly more vulgar tone. However,


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it is still late-night political satire. Political trust was here divided between the trust in political

parties and the government.

The results show that, even in Israel, political comedy has a significant negative effect on

political trust, contrary to talk shows for example (see Table 4). Therefore, the effects of political

satire are not only limited to a single country.

Two studies tend to contradict these findings.

Becker (2011) uses a posttest survey conducted in the wake of an experiment similar to

Baumgartners. The difference is that she compares satirical news to other humorous programs.

Political trust is measured by agreement to the sentence I trust the government to do what is

right

. LNPS was measured by habitual exposure to TDS and TCR.

Becker finds no support for a negative relationship, with a slight positive and insignificant

relation (Table 5).

La Marre (2013) uses an experiment. His (non-representative) sample was composed of 132

randomly chosen adults recruited through a jury pool. The sample was divided in 2x2 groups. The

first division was between persons which received some contextual information before viewing the

clips (high-ability) and persons who didnt (low-ability). The second division was between

exposure to a clip from CNNs Anderson Cooper 360 (AC360) and a clip from The Daily Show.


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Both concerned 2009 AIGs scandal, when AIG gave to its shareholders 90% of the amount of their

government bailout. Both clips were critical.

LaMarre finds that people with low-ability have a uniform approval of Congress. However,

when people have more ability, they tend to be more critical toward Congress after seeing the clip

of Anderson Cooper, and less critical after seeing The Daily Show (see figure 2). LaMarre argues

that it is due to the fact that people tend to discount Jon Stewarts arguments. This is contradictory

with previous findings.

There are two reasons that can let one think that theses studies have a limited significance, which

leads one to conclude that H1 is valid.

In the case of Becker, the results were just insignificant and werent really the proof of that

H1 is wrong. We can explain this statistical insignificance by the sample of the survey. For instance,

only 32% (~160 person) of the respondents were male, even though male is the core audience of

American LNPS. The size of the sample is therefore limited.

Figure 2: Ability by message interaction for

Congress Attitude

Source : La Marre 2013

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Low ability High ability

Exposure to CNN Exposure to TDS


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In the case of LaMarre, it is likely that the big flaw of the study is the interaction between

the clip showed and question wording. What is noticeable in the clip used by LaMarre is that the1

blame or mockery goes on AIG, Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama. But the question asked to

measure political trust was the trust in Congress. However, in the clip, Congress is not mocked. The

only time Congress is mentioned is when a Senator blames Bernanke for its bailout plan. Moreover,

the AC360 clip explicitly blamed Congress. Therefore, as the study is an experiment, and then2

focused on the short-term reactions, it is not at all surprising that viewing The Daily Shows clip

was related to more Congress approval. Moreover, LaMarre doesnt say anything about the

significance of its results.

H2: Media trust

Baumgartner & al. (2006) also asked to the participants of their experiment their trust in news

media (= agreement to the sentence I trust the news media to cover political events fairly and

accurately). They find a strong very significant relationship between distrust and TDS exposure

(see Table 6).

The clip used by LaMarre can be seen at this address: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/c9zg8f/the-1

notorious-aig---outrage.

The clip can be seen at this address : http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2009/03/20/2

ac.aig.bonus.cnn
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/c9zg8f/the-notorious-aig---outragehttp://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2009/03/20/ac.aig.bonus.cnn


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Baumgartner & al also mention the Pew Media Consumption Study of 2004. Unlike their

experiment, this is a survey. The sentence to agree or disagree with is : often dont trust what

news organizations are saying . They find the same results of Baumgartners experiment

(youngsters are more likely to be cynical toward media when exposed to The Daily Show). (see

Table 7).

Guggenheim & al (2011) use a method very close to Pew (2004), since it is a survey and asks for

the habitual use of TDS. The statement they ask to agree or disagree with is: I trust the news

media to cover political events fairly and accurately.. The item was reverse coded.


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Guggenheim doesnt find enough evidence to support H2 (see Table 8). In general, seeing the

incremental R2, media use hasnt much impact on media mistrust.

We could infer that the effect of TDS on media trust really depends on the age, and the

relationship is stronger for younger people. This would be consistent with the results of Pew (2004).

Guggenheim & al. actually find this when investigating the interaction between media use and age.

If an individual is older and watches satirical news, one actually trusts more the media.

Guggenheim finds the same thing when an individual is more partisan (see Table 9).


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RQ1: LNPS exposure and political participation

Hoffman & Thomson (2009) use data from a survey conducted with 517 high-school students. They

investigate the mediating effect of cynicism. Namely, they try to know if there is an indirect link

between TDS exposure and political participation via the variation of cynicism. Since political

participation is impossible for high-school students, they measured civic participation such as

extracurricular activities. Cynicism was measured with sentences such as Elected officials almost

never keep campaign promises.

The study doesnt find anything. The coefficients are extremely low and the results are not

significant (see Table 10).


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CONCLUSIVE REMARKS

The results are consistent with the hypothesis H1. In general, exposure to LNPS triggers political

distrust. This is a general, verified effect. Two studies that apparently contradict these findings have

some methodological flaws that limit their significance.

Even though this subject hasnt been raised, it is worth noting that the effects of LNPS on

cynicism are stronger for those who are less experienced with political satire: stronger effects of a

Daily Show clip for people who dont usually watch TDS (Baumgartner 2006), stronger effects of

Daily Showuse for people who dont also read newspapers (Guggenheim 2011).

However, though LNPS targets news media as well, we dont find any evidence of a uniform

relationship between media mistrust and exposure to LNPS. (H2) This relationship is more

complex. Some are more likely to be influenced. Youngsters, as well as less-educated, less partisan

citizens are more prone to mistrust the media, after having watched LNPS.

RQ1 has no real answer, since the results of Hoffman & al (2009) are insignificant and likely show

a very weak link. However, we can find elements of answers in other studies about LNPS, even

though they havent dealt with the matter of political trust. The consequences of exposure to LNPS

are diverse. Therefore, a large number of factors influence the characteristics of a

good citizen

.

LNPS is positively related to political attentiveness (Cao 2010), political knowledge, as well as

political expression (Becker 2013). Moreover, internal efficacy, which is beliefs about ones own

competence to understand, and to participate effectively in, politics (Baumgartner 2006), is also

closely related to political participation, and it appears that it has a positive mediating effect

(Hoffman 2009, 2011).

Therefore, it would be really useful to understand the link between the cognitive

phenomenons triggered by LNPS. For instance, the interaction between LNPS exposure, cynicism

and political participation has been investigated (Hoffman 2009). But the interaction between LNPS

exposure, cynicism and internal efficacy has not. Viewers tend to feel more knowledgable about

politics after watching LNPS: if viewers have more cognitive control over politics, could it decrease

cynicism?

***


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We could infer from this study that LNPS is a danger for democracy because it increases cynicism.

But this assertion would be contestable.

1. LNPS has a bunch of positive political effects that have to be balanced with cynicism increase.

2. The main problem with LNPS is when people tend to replace hard news use with it, therefore

tending to consider LNPS as their sole source of information. However, even for youngsters,

this is only seldom the case (Young 2006). Moreover, the political significance of LNPS tend to

be discounted (LaMarre 2013).

3. Cynicism is not bad in every case. There is still no overwhelming support for the hypotheses

that cynicism leads to less political participation (Baumgartner 2006). Political trust can be

defined, according to Easton, between support to the political authorities and the political

system (Easton 1975). Therefore, trust can be directed toward the politicians, the news media,

or the system. This distinction is made by some researchers (Guggenheim 2011, Baumgartner

2006), but not by others. Therefore, it is still difficult to measure the significance and the

consequences of political mistrust as triggered by LNPS.

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