Abstract

Despite a great deal of research, much about the effects of political comedy programming on its viewers remains uncertain. One promising line of work has focused on increased internal political efficacy—the sense that one is competent to engage with politics—as an outcome of exposure to political comedy programs. This may explain results showing that viewers are more likely to participate in politics. We extend this approach by considering the role of political comedy’s “gateway” effect in encouraging political media consumption, which can promote additional increases in efficacy and participation. This study provides a theoretical synthesis of prior research and a rigorous empirical test using a representative panel survey of adults in the United States, providing evidence of a relationship between political comedy and participation with both news use and internal efficacy serving as mediators. Furthermore, we find that only political satire, not late-night talk shows, appear to produce these effects.

中文翻译：

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政治喜剧作为通向新闻使用，内部效能和参与的门户：纵向调解分析

摘要

尽管进行了大量研究，但政治喜剧节目对其收视者的影响仍然不确定。一项有前途的工作重点是提高内部政治效力，即有能力参与政治，这是接触政治喜剧节目的结果。这可以解释显示观众更可能参与政治的结果。我们通过考虑政治喜剧的“门户”效应在鼓励政治媒体消费中的作用来扩展这种方法，这可以促进功效和参与度的进一步提高。这项研究使用美国成年人口代表性面板调查，为先前的研究提供了理论上的综合，并进行了严格的经验检验，提供政治喜剧与参与之间的关系的证据，并利用新闻和内部效能作为调解人。此外，我们发现只有政治讽刺而不是深夜脱口秀似乎会产生这些影响。