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No Laughing Matter: Negative Attribute Agenda Setting on Late Night Television
By
Amy Zerba and Tania Cantrell
School of Journalism
University of Texas at Austin
P.O. Box 8238, Austin, TX 78713
(512) 699-2347
[log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask]
Submitted to the Entertainment Studies Interest Group of the AEJMC
National Convention,
San Antonio, Texas, August 2005
Abstract
No Laughing Matter: Negative Attribute Agenda Setting on Late Night Television
[Key Words: Late Night Television, Agenda Setting, Daily Show, Election]
This attribute agenda setting study explores the negative attributes
of Bush and Kerry jokes on Leno, Letterman, Conan and The Daily Show
and the negative attributes stated by watchers and non-watchers of
the shows during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Findings from
this content analysis, Web survey and experiment study show attribute
agenda setting effects for Bush; increased campaign interest with
show(s) exposure; and the significant influence of party affiliation
with respondents' negative descriptions and the jokes' negative attributes.
3
No Laughing Matter: Negative Attribute Agenda Setting on Late Night Television
Introduction
What do former President Bill Clinton playing the saxophone, Sen.
John Kerry riding a Harley-Davidson, and President George Bush
reading a Top 10 White House joke list have in common? These
presidential candidates performed these routines on late-night
television in an attempt to reach younger voters. Sixty-one percent
of people aged 18-29[1] regularly or sometimes learn about the
campaign or get news about the candidates from non-traditional news
sources, such as comedy shows like Saturday Night Live or The Daily
Show (Pew Research Center, 2004). Studying young voters' perceptions
of candidate attributes and opinions of the candidates grows more
important as non-traditional news, or what has been termed "new
news," increases in popularity. Prior to the 2004 presidential
election, young voter turnout had declined 13 percentage points among
young citizens during the 1972 to 2000 presidential election years,
excluding a 1992 presidential election voting spike (Center for
Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, 2002 & 2003).
In the 2004 election, young voter turnout amplified, with at least
20.9 million Americans under age 30 -- an increase of 4.6 million
from 2000 voting (CIRCLE, 2004).
Specific to the 2004 presidential election, the two candidates
targeted the young voter through their appearances on new news
programs, such as The Daily Show, Letterman, Leno, Live with Regis
and Kelly, Dr. Phil and the BET Network, and The O'Reilly Factor.
This study explores the relationship between the young voters'
perceptions of the 2004 candidates and late-night television jokes. A
content analysis of negative jokes from four shows (the Late Show
with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with
Conan O'Brien Show, and The Daily Show), a Web survey of college-aged
students and an experiment of non-late-night TV watchers were
conducted prior to the 2004 presidential election to tap into the
influence of non-traditional news on young adults' negative
perceptions of the candidates. Attribute agenda setting theory founds
this study. Why is studying agenda setting effects among college-aged
students so important? People get cues about what is important via
personal experience, interpersonal communication and mass
communication (Lasorsa & Wanta, 1990), with the mass medium chosen
varying from person to person, depending on age, gender, education, etc.
Literature Review
Attribute Agenda-Setting Theory, Candidate Image and Need for Orientation
Attribute agenda setting theory extends object salience, or
first-level agenda setting, which considers the issues the public
thinks about (McCombs & Shaw, 1972), to attribute salience, or
second-level agenda setting, which concerns how the public thinks
about issues. Kim and McCombs (2004) describe the agenda of
attributes, noting that issues, or objects, in the news have many
attributes that "fill out the picture of that object" (pp. 2-3). Each
issue can have an agenda of attributes, which can be ranked according
to relative salience of those attributes. Second level
agenda-setting effects are particularly important to understanding
presidential candidates' attributes. Campaign coverage of 20 U.S.
newspapers during the last four weeks of the 1968 presidential
campaign was found to be similar; coverage mostly focused on the
candidates' personal qualities, primarily their personality traits,
from trustworthiness to the ability to inspire confidence,
compassion, ability to empathize with the needs of people, and the
ability to show restraint in his style of operations (Graber, 1972).
Also, candidate attributes, which can subsume issue and persona
perceptions that voters find important, vary from election to
election (Hacker, Zakahi, Giles & McQuitty, 2000).
The public has been found to link factual information and personal
characteristics to candidates based on media coverage, even when that
coverage has been purposively falsified in an experimental lab
setting (Kiousis, Bantimaroudis & Ban, 1999). However, a study by
Golan & Wanta (2001) showed the public is less likely to link
positive/negative evaluations of these same issues and
characteristics to candidates in proportion to the positive/negative
coverage the candidates received in the news media. When viewers
chose television news in a longitudinal study spanning seven years,
the findings showed that agenda setting effects are unidirectional;
television news, particularly lead stories and when the president is
featured, influences public concern, not vice versa (Behr & Iyengar,
1985). Additionally, having at least some college education as well
as prior awareness of news topics through print media exposure
contributes to increases in television-mediated agenda-setting
effects (Hill, 1985). Further, exposure quality, rather than
quantity, leads to greater agenda-setting effects (Hill, 1985, p. 348).
People receive and/or seek out information in accordance with their
need to know, or their need for orientation. The degree to which
attribute agenda-setting effects occur depends largely on the
public's need for orientation (Weaver, 1991), which is determined by
one's degree of interest in the message content; uncertainty about
the subject of the message; and effort required to attend to the
message (including the perceived likelihood that a reliable source of
information is available) (Weaver, 1991). Political campaign
information, particularly synthetic presidential candidate images
(Nimmo & Savage, 1976), is linked to this need for orientation
because of indirect source availability and unobtrusiveness. To
orient themselves, young voters turn to various media, including
traditional and non-traditional forms. The researchers hypothesize:
H1. Viewers with a greater need for orientation about the
presidential candidates are more likely to be exposed to late-night television.
Non-Traditional News: Presidential Debates and Political Humor
Learning about candidates and their images and personalities as well
as increasing factual political knowledge is becoming popular through
soft news (Baum, 2003). Two types of soft news, which has been termed
"infotainment" for its supposed decrease in emphasis on political
participation (Brants, 1998), that are particularly important to
young voters are the presidential debates and political humor. A
study of the media during the 1992 election showed that the
interview/talk format, which included the debates, added to voter
learning about the candidates (Chaffee, Zhan & Leshner, 1994).
According to a USA Today survey, 36 percent of people considered
televised debates to be the most valuable information source in their
decision-making (Carlin, 2000). Reasons for this could include the
reasoning, clearer statements and greater specificity in issues,
along with more accurate and precise discourse within the
give-and-take exchanges that audiences witness between the candidates
(An & Pfau, 2004). Debate watching has been linked to participation
in the campaign and vote likelihood (McLeod et al., 1996). Also,
attention to such talk shows by those with a higher education has
been shown to be positively associated with actual campaign knowledge
(Hollander, 1995).
Non-traditional news sources in the 1992 presidential campaign were
found to be more influential than traditional news media on
prospective voters' perceptions of the candidates' competence and
relational traits, the latter being intimate characteristics such as
personable/unpersonable, warm/cold, sincere/insincere, to name a few
(Pfau & Eveland, 1996). The researchers hypothesized this may be
because non-traditional news is personal by nature.
Evidence negating non-traditional media's influence also exists.
Nontraditional media in the form of TV talk shows and morning network
shows also have been shown not to contribute significantly to greater
knowledge of candidate issue positions, greater intention to vote or
higher levels of interest in the 1992 election campaign (Weaver &
Drew, 1995). However, exposure to non-traditional news may have an
influence on individuals' attitudes, including even their voting
behavior particularly among those not intrinsically interested in
politics or foreign affairs without necessarily having a comparable
effect on their long-term factual knowledge about specific political
issues or events (Baum, 2003). Because evidence about non-traditional
media's influence is mixed, this present study specifically examines
campaign interest and exposure to late-night television, predicting:
H2. The greater the amount of campaign interest, the greater the
exposure to late-night television.
Attention to night time television shows, which are a form of
political humor, has proven an important source in candidate-issue
knowledge (Chaffee, Zhao & Leshner, 1994), even though some argue
that there is no new way to present information; use of new media is
just "more information about the same things" (Kerbel, 1995). But
political humor has many social functions. From the point of view of
politicians, humor can be used to define political concepts, to
disarm critics, to establish a position or make a point and to
relieve tension. From the point of view of political critics, humor
can be used to expose chauvinism, ineptitude, oppression, and even
pretentiousness (Nilsen, 1990). From viewers' perspective, political
humor plays a large role in not only how the public obtains political
information, but also what kind of information the public
obtains. "Comic sages" (Schutz, 1977) such as Jay Leno, David
Letterman, Jon Stewart, and Conan O'Brien rely on a basic
understanding of current events to joke with their audiences about
"the candidates' verbal gaffes, their off-beat proposals, and their
character flaws
" (Amundson & Lichter, 1998).
Young voters seek not only some of their news from late-night
television (Schechter, 2003), but a significant amount of their
political information, especially from The Daily Show during the 2004
election. For example, reports on surveys from the 1996 campaign
showed that 40 percent of Americans under 30 learned something about
presidential politics from late-night television (Bennet, 1996),
while reports on surveys during the 2000 campaign said that almost
half (47 percent) of Americans under the age of 30 said they get at
least some of their news about presidential campaigns from late-night
shows (Halonen, 2000). These numbers remained at least as high in
the 2004 presidential election and demonstrated a significant
difference in political knowledge between those who watch late-night
television and those who do not. Polling conducted over a two-month
period in 2004 showed that The Daily Show watchers answered more
items correctly on a six-item political knowledge test (3.59 items)
compared to Leno watchers (2.95), Letterman viewers (2.91) and
non-watchers of late-night comedy (2.62) (Young, 2004).
Why do The Daily Show viewers differ so greatly from other late-night
television show viewers? This study, which treats The Daily Show and
the other "Big 3" (Leno, Letterman, O'Brien) late-night television
shows separately, considers this, examining the attributes of each
show and projecting:
H3. The negative attribute agendas of Bush and Kerry on The Daily
Show, Letterman, Leno and Conan will be similar.
According to the Pew Research Center's national study, 27 percent of
young people under 30 who say they regularly or sometimes learn
campaign news from comedy and late-night shows indicate they also
learn new things about the candidates and campaigns that they didn't
know before (2004). In other words, the audiences rely on the "sages"
to gain perspective into the candidates' personalities, to see that
"Hey, they're people, too" (Wizda, 2000). And young voters, primarily
those who have a higher education level, tend to want to learn about
presidential candidates' personal attributes (Glass, 2001; Hollander,
1995). This current study specifically examines exposure to
late-night television and attribute agenda setting, stipulating
H4. The strength of the relationship between the shows' negative
presidential candidate attributes and viewers' negative attributes of
presidential candidates is contingent upon the amount of exposure to
late night television.
In controlling for exposure in an experimental setting, this study
further hypothesizes
H5. Attribute agenda-setting effects will increase when never or
seldom viewers of late- night television are exposed to negative
presidential candidate jokes.
Political Humor and Partisanship
From the late-night shows, monologues and jokes influence culturally
savvy voters' perceptions of political candidates (Weinraub, 2000).
Rob Burnett, executive producer of the Letterman Show, acknowledged
that his show and others had an impact, but said, the shows only take
"what people understand about a candidate and make fun of it. We
don't really invent anything." Said Leno:
Let me explain what happens with a joke. You have to repeat
information they already know. For example, if it made the headlines
today, you go, 'Thank you for coming to the show tonight. As you
know, you all signed your loyalty oaths.' If they go, 'What's he
talking about?' then I'm still talking, and they're still explaining
the joke to each other. (Finke, 2004)
He also stipulated, "You don't change anybody's mind with comedy
You
just reinforce what they already believe" (Weinraub, 2000).
In a study that content analyzed first-run episodes of the Tonight
Show, Late Show, Late Night and Politically Incorrect over a span of
five years (1996-2000), Leno was found to be the most prolific
political jokester (Niven, Lichter & Amundson, 2003). In the past
five years, late night television jokes have tended to be non-issue
oriented, targeted more at Democrats, and directed more at the
executive branch, such as the president, major presidential
candidates and those surrounding the candidates such as family, the
cabinet, advisors and accusers (Niven et al.).
Studies that indicate partisanship influences the image that voters
have of candidates are mixed (Sigel, 1964; Campaign for Young Voters,
2004). The image that Democrats held of their ideal president in the
1960 election correlated positively with their image of Kennedy
(Sigel, 1964). The Republicans' ideal image correlated positively
with their image of Nixon. The Democratic view of Nixon did not
relate significantly to their idealized image of the president. The
same was true for Republicans' image of Kennedy. No significant
correlations were obtained when the independents' ideal image was
compared to that of either candidate. Partisanship is important in
determining the ideal candidate but not so much in formulating the
ideal non-preferred candidate image. Voters, though, do consider
competence, character and sociability, followed by composure and
extroversion, as the most important dimensions among political
candidates (McCroskey & Jenson, 1975).
Questions regarding the connection between voter political
affiliation and candidate image attributes arise. Specifically, this
study explores
R1. Does party affiliation affect the relationship between the shows'
negative attributes of the presidential candidates and regular
viewers' negative attributes of the candidates?
To address the research question and each of the five preceding
hypotheses, a four-pronged method was used to investigate late night
television's negative attributes of candidates and the public's
negative attribute agenda. Do attribute agenda setting effects cross
over to late night television?
Method
The research design of this study merges a traditional agenda-setting
study (survey and content analysis) with a laboratory experiment. It
consisted of (a) a content analysis of a constructed week (Riffe,
Aust, & Lacy, 1993) in October of presidential jokes on four
late-night television shows: the Big 3, or the Late Show with David
Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Late Night with Conan
O'Brien Show, and The Daily Show; (b) a Web-based survey of randomly
selected college students conducted two weeks prior to the 2004 U.S.
presidential election; (c) a content analysis of presidential
candidate jokes on a 25-minute tape of edited segments from these
shows spliced together from two weeks of mid-October programs used in
an experiment; and (d) a paper survey given to college students who
reported never watching these four late-night television shows or
watching no more than three of them one day a week.
Because most jokes on late night television about presidential
candidates are negative, only the negative attributes were used in
this study. See Table 4.1. Too few jokes on late night television
described the candidates in positive or neutral ways. For this
reason, this study specifically examined only negative attributes
about the candidates on late night television and by viewers and
non-viewers of these four shows (Letterman, Leno, Conan and The Daily Show).
The study was conducted during a time when the United States was at
war with Iraq; Bush and Kerry had finished their third debate four
days prior to the study's survey part; some prospective voters did
not know where the Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry stood on key
issues; and Bush remained ahead of Kerry in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup
poll by a 52 to 44 margin (Gallup Organization, 2004).
The Web-based Survey and Sample. A systematic random sample with a
random start point was used to select 30 percent of currently
registered students at a large southwestern university who had agreed
to list their email address publicly with the university. The sample
of 15,077 students was emailed a request to participate in a
30-question Web-based survey. A link in the email pointed students to
the online survey. Respondents were given one week (Oct. 17-24, 2004)
to take the survey. The invitation email to take part in the study
mentioned an incentive (a random drawing for one $50 gift certificate
to the university's bookstore) to participate and assured
confidentiality. A reminder email was sent on the fourth day. Survey
results were automatically sent to a database, where open-ended
answers were categorized. The results were then rank ordered and
analyzed in SPSS. The response rate was 10 percent (N=1,556). Because
this study controlled for two variables age and U.S. citizenship
1,250 students who took the survey qualified. This final total --
1,250 participants -- included only those ages 18 to 29, similar to
the Pew Research Center studies, and those who were U.S. citizens.
Presidential Candidate Attributes. To measure the public's attribute
agenda for each presidential candidate, the Web-based survey asked
students the attribute agenda setting question, "Suppose that one of
your friends has been away a long time and knows nothing about the
candidates for president. What would you tell your friend about
[George W. Bush or John Kerry]?" (Kihan & McCombs, 2004). The first
100 open-ended answers for each candidate were then categorized and
collapsed into 10 categories by two graduate students. The
categories, which were based on a previous attribute agenda setting
presidential campaign study (McCombs, Lopez-Escobar & Pablo Llamas,
2000) but with additional categories were: Ideology; Biography,
Record and Leadership; Integrity and Values; Personality and Image;
War, Terrorism and Allies; Public Speaking/Debates; Flip Flopping and
Decision-making; Intelligence; and Other. These same categories were
used for the content analysis of the presidential candidate jokes on
the four late-night television shows as well. Further, the tone of
the comment or joke, depending on its assertion valence, was
categorized into positive, neutral or negative (Kihan & McCombs,
2004). The intercoder reliability coefficient was .90 using Holsti's
method (Neuendorf, 2002). A second test for reliability midway
through the coding stage produced a .85 intercoder reliability
coefficient using Holsti's method.
The nine categories were defined as follows:
1.) Ideology/Issues was characterized as comments made about where a
candidate stood on specific issues, his party platform,
liberal/moderate/conservative and his vision/goals.
2.) Biography, Record and Leadership incorporated references made
about the candidates' past record either in office or not in office.
For example, one student wrote "[Kerry] is a democratic senator from
Boston who is married to the Heinz Ketchup lady." All of these
references (except "democratic," which is Ideology) fall under
Biography and Record. Again, for this study the researchers only used
the first attribute listed. So, this example would fall under the
Ideology category, because "democratic" was the first attribute
listed. Another student wrote, "George Bush has done a good job in
leading this nation through the difficult times that we have faced
since Sept. 11
" This was coded as Bush positive Record.
3.) Integrity and Values touched on the candidates' morals,
especially truth. For example, the response, "He is a liar who does
not know what he is doing" was coded as Bush negative Integrity.
4.) Personality and Image incorporated any inferences made about a
candidate's overall image. For example, "typical politician," "evil,"
"close-minded," "stubborn." Mostly adjectives about their image or
personality fell into this category.
5.) War encompassed anything that dealt with the war in Iraq,
terrorism or allies. If war was mentioned, it trumped all other
categories. For example, the statement "He lied to us about the war
in Iraq" fell into War, not Integrity and Values.
6.) Public Speaking/Debates included references to speaking in
general. Because this study took place four days after the third
presidential debate, many references were made to the candidates'
speaking ability; hence, this category surfaced.
7.) Flip Flopping/Decision-making incorporated references made about
changing positions. Examples include "wishy washy," "flip flopper,"
"will follow through with what he says" and "is willing to make tough
decisions."
8.) Intelligence encompassed any descriptive word or phrase to
describe the candidates' intelligence, such as "stupid," "moron,"
"idiot," "intelligent" and "smart."
9.) Other referred to references that did not fit into any of the
above categories, such as "He is the lesser of two evils," "vote for
him," or "I don't like him."
Because humor is a difficult construct to content analyze, a system
of operationalizations was developed, as described below.
Content Analysis. Comments said about the two candidates were
content analyzed using a count system for the description and tone of
the comment. To illustrate, if a respondent replied with several
comments about a candidate, only the first description was coded. The
following is a sample of open-ended answers, along with the coded
category, for the question "If you had a friend who knew nothing
about John Kerry, how would you describe Kerry to your friend?"
War hero from Vietnam, Massachusetts's senator
[positive Record]
He has some faults, but overall will do a much better job than Bush
[negative Image]
He supports stem cell research [neutral Ideology]
Vote for him [positive Other]
He is very indecisive and cannot stick to one story [negative Flip Flopping]
Liar but a great debater [negative Integrity and Values]
Late Night Shows' Presidential Attributes. Jokes about Bush and Kerry
on the Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay
Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien Show and The Daily Show were
content analyzed during a constructed week in October and Nov. 1, the
night prior to the election. The dates were as follows: Tuesday, Oct.
5; Wednesday, Oct. 13; Thursday, Oct. 21; Friday, Oct. 29; and
Monday, Nov. 1, 2004. Because of technical difficulties (a power
outage), only the monologue of the Oct. 5, 2004 Conan O'Brien Show
was content analyzed. The monologue is typically when most jokes
about the presidential candidates take place (Weinraub, 2000), with
the exception of The Daily Show, which is one continuous monologue
with Jon Stewart sprinkled with skits and interviews. Aside from the
Oct. 5, 2004 Conan monologue-only episode, each show in its entirety
was content analyzed for mentions of either candidate. Interviews
with guests, however, were not coded even if jokes about Bush or
Kerry were mentioned. In addition, only verbal jokes not facial
gestures or sounds, such as applause -- were counted and coded. The
tone of the joke positive, negative and neutral also was coded.
Jokes often contained a lead-in, the joke, and the punch line. Each
part was coded. Lead-ins without any humor were coded as neutral. If
the skit made fun of the candidate, it was coded accordingly for each
individual remark about the candidate, followed by the punch line, if
there was one. The "punch line" refers to the host making fun of what
the audience just saw. For example, David Letterman introduces a joke
by saying "And now, ladies and gentleman, a message from John Kerry,"
and a flag appears with the words: "A Message from John Kerry" [coded
as neutral Other]. A 15-second edited montage of clips appears from
Kerry speaking at various venues. Kerry is shown saying, "Let me tell
you straight up, I'm wishy-washy [coded as negative Flip Flopping], I
change my mind [coded the same], I'm a flip flopper [coded the same],
I can't be president [coded as negative Image]." The scene then cuts
to the flag with the same words "A Message from John Kerry" to end
the joke, but not coded because it's not necessarily a punch line.
Experimental Design. To examine late-night television effects more
closely, a group of 56 students volunteered to take part in a second,
smaller portion of the original Web-based study during Oct. 26-28,
2004. A question on the original Web-based survey requested
volunteers for this second part of the study with the following
statement, "We would like to know more about your TV viewing habits
and opinions about the election. If you supply your email address
here, we may contact you in the near future for the second part of
this study that also has an incentive." The incentive for the
experiment portion was free pizza for one hour of their time.
Of those students who supplied usable email address (N=1,026), only
those students who were ages 18 to 29, U.S. citizens and never or
seldom watched late night television or watched the show(s) one day a
week were considered (N=345). To increase the sample pool, students
could watch up to three of the shows per week but only one day a week
for each, no more[2]. Those who qualified under these conditions
(N=345) were divided into two groups by an alternating method. One
person was assigned to the control group; the next person was
assigned to the experiment; next person to the control group, etc. A
total of 56 participants were divided into two groups. The
experimental group watched a montage of edited clips from all four
shows with non-presidential jokes in the mix. The control group
watched a third-season episode of Friends, with no references to
politics or the election.
The two groups the experimental group and the control group were
sent the same email inviting them to participate in the three-night
study. Each night consisted of three time slots. Similar to the
alternating placement of participants in the two groups, the one-hour
time slots alternated between a control and experiment group
[3]. So, on all three nights, a control group and an experiment
group participated in the study. After the television viewing, both
groups of students then were given the same Web-based survey, with a
few added questions and in paper-and-pencil form. After surveys were
collected, the participants were debriefed and promised confidentiality.
Measures
Late night television exposure. Students were asked: "In a typical
week, how many days do you watch [the Daily Show with Jon Stewart,
The Late Night Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay
Leno and Late Night with Conan O'Brien Show]?" The six choices for
Letterman and Leno were: No days; one day; two days; three days; four
days and five days. The choices for The Daily Show differed from the
first two, for this show only runs Monday through Thursday, with a
repeat every Friday. The five choices provided for The Daily Show
were: No days; one day; two days; three days; and four or five days.
For consistency with The Daily Show, responses for "four days" and
"five days" were collapsed into one answer of "four or five days" for
Letterman, Leno and Conan.
Responses to exposure to the four late-night television shows were
then factor analyzed. Using a rotated varimax factor analysis,
Letterman, Leno and Conan loaded similarly, and The Daily Show loaded
separately. Therefore, this study examined Letterman, Leno and Conan
as a newly created "Big 3" late night television variable. The
"Daily Show" was treated as a separate late- night television
variable. When testing exposure, students who answered that they
watched one or more of the Big 3 shows (Letterman, Leno and Conan)
one or more days a week were counted once as a late night show
watcher. Those who answered no days to all three shows were
considered non-watchers of late night television. The Daily Show
exposure had the same two categories of exposure non-watchers and watchers.
Late night television exposure for experiment study. The initial
exposure to late night television was controlled for in the
experiment by recruiting only those students who reported never or
seldom watching these four late-night television shows or watching up
to three of them at the most one day a week. The exposure variable,
however, for the experiment was a stimulus: a 30-minute tape blending
presidential candidate and non-political jokes from the four
late-night television shows airing Oct. 1-15, 2004. The negative
candidates jokes were split evenly. Half of the students (N=28) in
the experiment watched the tape. The control group (N=27) was not
exposed to this stimulus. The presidential candidate jokes on the
edited tape were content analyzed, and the same nine categories were
used. The frequencies of the negative attribute jokes within these
categories were tabulated and compared to the salience of attributes
for each candidate by the participants in the study. Spearman's rho
was used to determine the rank order similarities of the attributes
between the edited tape (stimulus) and the participants' presidential
candidate attributes.
Public's attributes of presidential candidates on Web survey.
Students were asked, "Suppose that one of your friends has been away
a long time and knows nothing about the candidates for president.
What would you tell your friend about George W. Bush?" Then asked,
"Suppose that one of your friends knows nothing about John Kerry.
What would you tell your friend about Kerry?" The open-ended
responses for this dependent variable were collapsed into:
Ideology/Issue/Vision; Biography; Record and Leadership; Integrity
and Values; Personality and Image; War, Terrorism and Allies; Debates
and Public Speaking; Flip Flopping and Decisiveness; Intelligence;
and Other. The frequency of the negative-only responses for each of
the nine categories was tabulated separately for Kerry and for Bush.
These frequencies were then compared to the frequencies of the
late-night television attributes of both candidates. A Spearman's rho
was calculated to determine rank order similarities between the
late-night television shows' salience of attributes of the
presidential candidates and students' salience of attributes of Bush and Kerry.
Late night television negative attributes of the presidential
candidates. The four late-night shows were content analyzed and jokes
were coded using the nine categories stated earlier. Only the
negative jokes were compared, for the number of positive and neutral
jokes in the constructed week were too few to compare, with many
categories missing. The frequencies of each category of negative
attributes for each candidate were tabulated in SPSS, and a
Spearman's rho was used to calculate the rank order similarities with
the public's negative attribute agenda for each candidate.
Experiment participants' attributes of presidential candidates.
Again, students were asked the same "If you had a friend
" attribute
agenda setting question for both Bush and Kerry on the paper survey.
Similar to the Web survey, the open-ended responses for this
dependent variable were collapsed into the same nine categories. The
negative-only open-ended responses for those exposed to the stimulus
(edited montage of presidential candidate jokes from the four shows)
were compared to the negative only presidential candidate jokes on
the edited tape. The same test was conducted for the control group.
Frequencies were tabulated for the nine categories for each group and
for each candidate, and a Spearman's rho was calculated to determine
rank order similarities. The correlations between the two groups were compared.
Exposure to candidate attributes on experimental video. The
experiment pulled together jokes from each of the four shows to
examine possible attribute agenda setting effects. The negative
attributes of the jokes were closely balanced, with Bush having 32
and Kerry having 31. The jokes were coded into the nine categories.
The frequencies of jokes for each category were tabulated, and a
Spearman's rho was calculated to determine rank order similarities
between the negative attributes of the candidates separately on the
video clips and the negative attributes of each candidate by those
exposed to the video.
Party affiliation. Students were asked with which political party
they identify themselves. The choices were: Republican, Democrat,
Independent and Other. For purposes of this study, only the
Republican, Democrat and Independent responses were used. Students'
presidential candidate attributes for Bush and Kerry were examined by
controlling their party affiliation and late night television shows'
attributes of both Bush and Kerry. These frequencies were tabulated
and then compared to the frequencies of the late-night television's
attributes of both candidates. A Spearman's rho was calculated to
determine rank order similarities between the late-night television
shows' salience of attributes of the presidential candidates and
students' salience of attributes of Bush and Kerry.
Need for orientation. Students were asked the question, "Concerning
the two main candidates for president George W. Bush and John Kerry
do you feel that you: Know enough about them; Need some additional
information; or Need a great deal of information?" For an even
distribution, responses were collapsed into two categories -- "No
need for orientation" and "Need for orientation," the latter included
both "Need some additional information" and "Need a great deal of
information" responses. A chi square test was used to measure the
relationship between students' exposure to late night television and
their need for orientation. A separate chi square test was run for
watchers and non-watchers of The Daily Show and their need for orientation.
Campaign interest. This dependent variable was measured by the
number of debates a student watched. The question asked was, "How
many presidential debates have you watched this month?" The four
response choices (none, one debate, two debates and three debates)
were collapsed into three categories low political activity (none);
medium political activity (one to two debates); and high political
activity (three debates). A chi square test was used to measure the
relationship between students' exposure to late night television and
their political activity. A separate chi square test was run for
watchers and non-watchers of The Daily Show and their political
activity using the same three levels.
Study Weaknesses
Surveying college students has its strengths and weaknesses. Notable
weaknesses include that these students are all college-educated,
which represents a smaller subset of the national population. The
results cannot be generalized to the general population, but only
this group of students at this university. However, three fourths of
youth voters who voted in the 2004 election were college students,
making this sample type an influential voting population (Center for
Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, 2003). Also,
the study had a low 10 percent response rate[4].
Controlling for coder political bias needs to be addressed. The two
coders recognized their political biases one was a Democratic coder
and the other a Republican and took this into consideration when
coding. For difficult open-ended responses or jokes that leaned
positively and negatively for more than one category depending on the
political perspective, the two researchers collaborated to decide an
appropriate category and tone. All of The Daily Show was coded together.
Sample
Of the 1250 respondents, two-thirds were female. Ages ranged from 18
to 29 with the average age at 21. Three-fourths of the participants
were undergraduate students, and 20 percent were graduate students.
Seventy-one percent of the respondents were white with
Hispanic/Latino as the largest minority at 10 percent. Asian
Americans represented 9 percent, followed by blacks at 3 percent.
Ninety-five percent of the respondents reported being registered to
vote in the United States, and 360 of these students voted in the
2000 U.S. presidential election. This sample is somewhat interested
in the presidential election, for 88 percent reported that they
"probably would" or "definitely would" vote in the 2004 U.S.
presidential election. Also, 91 percent of these students watched one
or more of the debates (41% watched all three). More Democrats (38%)
took the survey than Republicans (28%). Independents (26%) made up
the third largest group followed by other parties listed (5%). The
other 3 percent didn't know, didn't respond or reported being
non-partisan. Almost the same number of students who considered
themselves moderates (39%) took the survey as those who considered
themselves to be liberal (38%). Self-reported conservatives made up
19 percent.
Results
About one-third of these participants watch late night television one
or more days a week with The Daily Show and Conan O'Brien tied as the
most popular choice (36%), and Leno (31%) and Letterman (28%)
trailed. These students tend to use more than one source for news
about the election; three-quarters report obtaining news about the
election from TV news sources, 66 percent from the Internet, 60
percent from newspapers, 46 percent from friends, and 51 percent
receive news from family.
As stated earlier, because of the overwhelming negative attributes on
late night television, only the negative attributes of candidates on
the shows and by viewers and non-viewers were compared. Personality
and Image (26%) was the top ranked negative attribute of Bush (N=107)
on all four shows (Letterman, Leno, Conan and The Daily Show),
followed by a three-way tie for second-place with War, Public
Speaking/Debates, and Intelligence (15%), and Ideology following
(10%). (See negative attributes on Table 4.1.) Personality and Image
(35%) dominated the 91 negative attributes for Kerry on the four
shows, followed by Speaking/Debates (15%), Flip Flopping/Decisiveness
(13%), Other (10%) and Ideology and Vision (9%).
Personality and Image (17%) ranked as students' top negative
attribute of Bush (N=572), followed closely by Bio and Record
(16.4%), Intelligence (16.3%), Ideology (12%) and Other (11.7%). See
Table 4.2. Personality and Image (36%) also ranked at the top of
Kerry's negative attributes (N=437) by students, followed by Flip
Flopping/Decisiveness (25%), Other (15%), Ideology/Vision (13%) and
Integrity and Values (5%). See Table 4.1.
H1. Viewers with a greater need for orientation about the
presidential candidates are more likely to be exposed to late night television.
There is a significant relationship between need for orientation and
exposure for The Daily Show only, but the correlation is weak (X2 =
9.60, df=1, p<.001). See Table 4.3. There was no significant
relationship found between need for orientation and exposure to the
Big 3 Shows (X2 = .005, df=1, p>.05). See Table 4.4
H2. The greater the amount of campaign interest, the greater the
exposure to late-night television.
A significant correlation was found between those regular watchers of
the Big 3 Shows and a medium to high campaign interest (X2 = 30.262,
df=2, p<.001). See Table 4.5. The same held true for The Daily Show,
as shown in Table 4.6. The higher the viewers' campaign interest, the
more exposure to The Daily Show (X2 = 51.82, df=2, p<.001). Low
campaign interest was equal to low exposure to both The Daily Show
and the Big 3 Shows.
H3. The negative attribute agendas of Bush and Kerry on The Daily
Show, Letterman, Leno and Conan will be similar.
The late night shows did not have similar negative attribute agendas
for each of the candidates except in one case; Conan O'Brien and
Letterman had significantly similar negative Kerry attribute agendas
(p<.01) with a Spearman's rho of +.793. See Table 4.7 for the
negative presidential candidate attributes for the shows.
H4. The strength of the relationship between the shows' negative
presidential candidate attributes and viewers' negative attributes of
presidential candidates is contingent upon the amount of exposure to
late-night television.
The salience of negative Bush attributes on the Big 3 Shows
(Letterman, Leno and Conan) positively parallels that of negative
Bush attributes by those who watch one or more of the shows at least
one day a week (p<.05, with a Spearman's rho of +.733). See Table
4.8. Negative attributes of Bush on the Big 3 Shows and non-viewers'
negative Bush attributes were not significant. Neither was the
salience of attributes for Kerry by both viewers and non-viewers.
No evidence of attribute agenda setting effects appeared for The
Daily Show's negative attributes of Bush or Kerry and those negative
attributes of the candidates by both viewers and non-viewers, as
shown below by Table 4.9.
H5. Attribute agenda-setting effects will increase when never or
seldom viewers of late night television are exposed to negative
presidential candidate jokes.
The salience of negative Kerry attributes strongly correlates with
the negative attributes of Kerry by those exposed to late night
television (p<.01, with a Spearman's rho of +.761). The negative Bush
attributes by the exposed participants and the late night television
clips' negative Bush attributes were not significantly similar. See
Table 4.10. However, in testing internal reliability, the experiment
group's responses about Kerry after viewing the video have a moderate
significant relationship to the non-exposed group's responses about
Kerry (p<.05, with a Spearman's rho of +.609). Also, the experiment
group's negative attributes of Kerry matched their previous responses
given on the Web survey (p<.05, with a Spearman's rho of +.625).
R1. Does party affiliation affect the relationship between the shows'
negative attributes of the presidential candidates and regular
viewers' negative attributes of the candidates?
The salience of negative Bush attributes on the Big 3 Shows is
strongly significantly similar to the salience of negative Bush
attributes by the Republican viewers who watch at least one of the
Big 3 Shows one or more days a week (p<.01, with a Spearman's rho of
+.824). See Table 4.11. The same held true for The Daily Show with
Republican viewers' negative attributes of Bush matching the shows'
negative attribute agenda of Bush (p<.05, with a Spearman's rho of
+.660). See Table 4.12.
Evidence of attribute agenda setting also was found between the
negative Kerry attributes on the Big 3 Shows and the negative
attribute agenda of Kerry attributes by Democrat viewers who watch
one or more shows at least once a week (p<.05, with a Spearman's rho
of +.613). See Table 4.13.
Table 4.14 shows the lack of a relationship, or no evidence of
attribute agenda setting effects, between negative Kerry attributes
on The Daily Show and negative attributes by Democrat or Republican
watchers of The Daily Show. The negative attribute agenda of the two
candidates by Independent viewers and the negative attributes on the
Big 3 Shows or on The Daily Show were not significantly similar.
Discussion
The most surprising finding of this study is the moderate to strong
relationship between young voter partisanship, negative candidate
attributes and exposure to late night television. The negative
comments that Republican late-night television watchers say about
their own party's candidate is similar to the negative attributes of
Bush on late night television. The negative comments that Democrat
late night television watchers say about their own party's candidate
Kerry is similar to the negative attributes of Kerry on the Big 3
Shows. Why would a person agree with the negative comments made about
his or her own party's presidential candidate? This contradicts a
previous finding that ideal images of candidates are tied to images
of favored candidates but not for the opposing candidate (Sigel,
1964), but that study addressed traditional news. Several
possibilities could explain this.
1. How political humor occurs may answer why late night television or
the Daily Show viewers see their own party candidate as the shows do
negatively. Joke listeners must have some prior knowledge of a
topic, or in this case person, to understand a political joke. When
this new knowledge (or joke content) is consistent with prior
knowledge or builds on it, the humor of it comes out. Two questions
arise: Is laughing at one's own party candidate easier than finding
laughable faults in the opposing candidate? And could negative,
jesting attributes possibly be more memorable than positive ones?
Political jokes have this "safe softness" attached to them; they do
not seriously attack the candidates, but they poke fun at them in a
way that both Republicans and Democrats will laugh. For example,
David Letterman showed video clips on a few of his shows of Bush
blinking rapidly while listening during the debates. The joke was set
up as the "Presidential Blink Count," and both Republicans and
Democrats could understand and laugh at it.
2. Repeated exposure of a negative attribute can stick.
Negative attributes of candidates are more likely to be seen on
non-traditional news sources than traditional media. Republicans most
likely have heard repeatedly negative attributes of Bush. They either
acknowledge the negative descriptions and counter them, feel angry
toward the Bush administration and agree with the jokes, compare the
negative attributes with the negative attributes of the other
candidate (i.e. "he's the lesser of two evils" was commonly used in
responses) or simply recite what they've heard repeatedly either by
the media or through discussion with others. In their responses, some
Republican students acknowledged these negative attributes of Bush,
but used them as qualifiers, such as "Bush is a terrible speaker, but
he isn't a dumb man," "He is not the most intelligent person but is a
good leader and has a great wife," or "That he sticks by what he
believes in even if he might be wrong." The same can be said about
Kerry and Democrats. Democrat respondents may have heard or read that
Kerry had been accused of flip flopping on decisions but until they
see it as parodied on The Daily Show, Letterman, Leno and Conan, the
negative attribute is simply what they have read or heard about.
3. Bush's history in the media is substantially longer than that of
Kerry's, which could explain the significant relationship between
Bush and exposure to the Big 3 shows. Because of greater exposure to
Bush over time via traditional and nontraditional media sources and
the tendency of media to be cynical to and critical of political
figures (McCombs, 2004), pre-existing knowledge of Bush and his
media-portrayed weaknesses may account for these results. No
significant findings were found between negative Kerry attributes on
the Big 3 Shows or on The Daily Show and watchers' negative Kerry
attributes. There was no evidence of attribute agenda setting effects
between non-viewers of all four shows and the four shows' negative
candidate attributes.
4. Why no significant effects for non-viewers' negative attributes
and late night television? It could be that the young voter relies on
a variety of media sources for campaign news. Three-quarters of the
students surveyed reported receiving news about the election from TV
news sources, 66 percent from the Internet, 60 percent from
newspapers and about half do from family and/or friends. Individuals
have different media use habits, and the extent of media effects
depends on people's motivations for using a specific medium or even
interest in following the campaign (Miller & MacKuen, 1979).
Campaign Interest. Campaign interest is linked to exposure to late
night television. The findings show significant relationships between
those with a medium or high interest in campaign news and exposure to
the Big 3 Shows and The Daily Show, which had a stronger correlation.
The more debates watched, considered a strong predictor campaign
interest by previous studies, the more exposure to late-night
television. But a 1976 presidential election survey of adult citizens
found that among those with a low degree of political activity, 40
percent watched none of the televised presidential debates compared
to 6 percent of the most attentive respondents (Miller & MacKuen,
1979). They concluded that the most attentive are likely to get their
political news from additional sources, not solely the debates. For
this study, campaign interest was treated as an antecedent to
late-night exposure. But could campaign interest be a consequence of
exposure to late-night television?
Need for orientation. A reverse correlation was found between need
for orientation about the candidates and exposure to The Daily Show.
The hypothesis predicted the greater the need for orientation, the
greater exposure to the shows. Of those who watch The Daily Show,
more viewers who marked that they "know enough" about the candidates
watched the show more than those with a greater need for orientation
about the candidates. Can the need for orientation in the attribute
agenda setting process be treated the same with non-traditional news
as it is with traditional news? The entertainment gratification
sought on late-night television may cloud this need for information
about a topic, issue or person. Perhaps this is why The Daily Show
has become so popular with young adults, for Jon Stewart discusses
what is happening in the news but then pokes fun at it and especially
how the media have covered it. It is this infotainment that young
adults may be drawn to in learning campaign news, rather than the
format of traditional news, which may successfully or not
successfully strive for objectiveness. Reasons for tuning into
late-night television need to be explored.
The experiment. The experiment setting found that the negative
attributes of Kerry given by the exposed group significantly matched
the negative attributes of the clips shown. However, internal
reliability checks of rank order between groups control and
experiment and within the group experiment group's pretest and
posttest rank orders negate the finding that the stimulus did
transfer salience of attributes for Kerry. The researchers recommend
further experimental testing of late night television's effects on
attribute agenda setting of politicians and non-politicians. Further,
manipulating attributes, such as using minor attributes, and the
tones of jokes (positive and negative), along with controlling for
other influential factors, such as party affiliation or media
exposure, are possible ways to explore nontraditional news' influence.
Conclusion
Comedy, "humanizes the [campaign] process"(Wizda, 2000) and, because
of its -- albeit questionable -- nontraditional role as an
influential news source, "is no laughing matter" (Wizda). This study
has shown that the new news is setting a negative agenda; Republicans
agree with the negative attributes of their party's candidate (Bush),
and Democrats agree with the negative attributes of Kerry. This could
be because of the very nature of the shows humor, and knowing
candidates well enough to recognize their faults. How much
information young voters obtain versus bring to nontraditional
late-night television is still unknown. Perhaps future studies could
test political knowledge prior to exposure of the shows followed by a
post-test.
This study's main strength draws on how political humor contributes
to the media and public attribute agenda setting conundrum. That the
traditional media agenda influences the public agenda and even a
policy agenda is an established by the more than 400 including
national and international -- agenda setting studies. New into this
inquiry is the question, "Do new, or non-traditional, news set
agendas differently than traditional media? " In addition, what other
elements mediate the relationship between the late-night television
and young voters' perceptions of candidates? This study has
investigated party affiliation and need for orientation as two
factors, yet more factors may be influential.
Whispering through this study is the complexity of today's
media-saturated society and audiences' abilities to and motivations
for selectively exposing and retaining or rejecting the information
before them. In so doing, industry implications are raised. Is
non-traditional news really an effective medium for candidates to
reach their audiences? Or is traditional news more effective?
Previous studies show mixed findings. Also, with the resulting
increase in young voter participation, what are the long-term effects
of differentiated messaging on democracy? Much work lies ahead.
Tables
Table 4.1: Tones of Presidential Candidate Jokes on Letterman, Leno,
Conan and The Daily Show
BUSH
KERRY
Attribute
Positive
Neutral
Negative
Attribute
Positive
Neutral
Negative
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
Ideology / Vision
5 (5)
2 (6)
10 (5)
Ideology / Vision
11 (4.5)
7 (5)
9 (5)
Bio and Record
10 (3)
4 (5)
7 (6.5)
Bio and Record
0 (8)
12 (4)
5 (7)
Integrity and Values
0 (8)
0 (8)
2 (8.5)
Integrity /Values
5 (6)
0 (8)
2 (9)
Personality / Image
14 (2)
6 (4)
26 (1)
Personality / Image
11 (4.5)
5 (6)
35 (1)
War
5 (5)
30 (2)
15 (3)
War
0 (8)
15 (3)
7 (6)
Speaking / Debates
5 (5)
22 (3)
15 (3)
Speaking / Debates
16 (2.5)
27 (2)
15 (2)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
0 (8)
0 (8)
2 (8.5)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
16 (2.5)
0 (8)
13 (3)
Intelligence
0 (8)
0 (8)
15 (3)
Intelligence
0 (8)
0 (8)
3 (8)
Other
62 (1)
37 (1)
7 (6.5)
Other
42 (1)
34 (1)
10 (4)
N=
21
54
107
19
41
91
Table 4.2: Negative Attributes of Presidential Candidates by Web
Survey Respondents
BUSH
KERRY
%
%
Ideology / Vision
11.9 (4)
13 (4)
Bio and Record
16.4 (2)
4 (6)
Integrity and Values
7 (7)
5 (5)
Personality / Image
17 (1)
36 (1)
War
11 (6)
.7 (8)
Speaking / Debates
6 (8)
2 (7)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
2 (9)
25 (2)
Intelligence
16.3 (3)
.5 (9)
Other
11.7 (5)
15 (3)
N =
572
437
According to Web survey responses.
Table 4.3: Need for Orientation about Candidates and Exposure to Daily Show
Non-Viewers
Viewers
Know enough info
54
63
Need more info
46
37
Valid Cases
(800)
(450)
X2 = 9.60, df=1 p<.001
Table 4.4: Need for Orientation about Candidates and Exposure to Big 3 Shows
Non-Viewers
Viewers
Know enough info
57
57
Need more info
43
43
Valid Cases
(609)
(641)
X2 = .005 df=1 p>.05
Big 3 Shows: Conan, Leno and Letterman
Table 4.5: Big 3 Shows and Campaign Interest
Low
Campaign Interest (%)
Medium
Campaign Interest (%)
High
Campaign Interest (%)
Non-Viewers
73
45
48
Viewers
27
55
52
Valid Cases
(117)
(616)
(517)
X2 = 30.26, df=2, p<.001
Table 4.6: Daily Show Exposure and Campaign Interest
Low
Campaign Interest (%)
Medium
Campaign Interest (%)
High
Campaign Interest (%)
Non-Viewers
87
68
54
Viewers
13
32
46
(Valid Cases)
(117)
(616)
(517)
X2 = 51.821, df=2, p <.001.
Table 4.7: Late Night Television Negative Attributes of Bush and Kerry
BUSH
KERRY
Daily Show
Conan
Leno
Letterman
Daily Show
Conan*
Leno
Letterman*
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
Ideology / Vision
19 (2)
0 (7)
12 (4)
0 (7)
8 (5)
9 (4)
0 (9)
21 (2)
Bio and Record
8 (5.5)
25 (2)
9 (5.5)
0 (7)
4 (7)
9 (4)
3 (6.5)
8 (4.5)
Integrity and Values
3 (9)
13 (3.5)
0 (8.5)
0 (7)
4 (7)
0 (7.5)
3 (6.5)
0 (8)
Personality / Image
11 (4)
50 (1)
21 (2)
45 (1)
23 (2)
27 (2)
40 (1)
46 (1)
War
16 (3)
0 (7)
9 (5.5)
24 (2)
12 (4)
0 (7.5)
10 (3.5)
0 (8)
Speaking / Debates
24 (1)
0 (7)
6 (7)
17 (3)
19 (3)
45 (1)
3 (6.5)
13 (3)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
5 (5.5)
0 (7)
0 (8.5)
0 (7)
27 (1)
0 (7.5)
10 (3.5)
8 (4.5)
Intelligence
8 (7)
13(3.5)
26 (1)
14 (4)
0 (9)
9 (4)
3 (6.5)
4 (6)
Other
5 (8)
0 (7)
18 (3)
0 (7)
4 (7)
0 (7.5)
27 (2)
0 (8)
N=
37
8
34
29
26
11
30
24
* Conan and Letterman shows had similar negative Kerry attributes
(Spearman's rho = .793, p<.01)
Table 4.8: Exposure to the Big 3 Shows, Participants' Negative
Attributes of Candidates and Negative Attributes of Presidential
Candidate on Late Night Television
BUSH
KERRY
TV / Jokes*
Viewers*
Non-Viewers
TV / Jokes
Viewers
Non-Viewers
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
Ideology / Vision
6 (7)
12 (5)
12 (4.5)
9 (4)
15 (3)
11 (4)
Bio and Record
7 (6)
16 (3)
17 (1)
6 (6)
4 (6)
4 (6)
Integrity and Values
1 (8)
6 (8)
8 (7)
2 (9)
5 (5)
5 (5)
Personality / Image
34 (1)
18 (1)
16 (2)
40 (1)
32 (1)
40 (1)
War
14 (3)
11 (6)
12 (4.5)
5 (7.5)
.5 (8.5)
.4 (7.5)
Speaking / Debates
10 (4)
7 (7)
6 (8)
14 (2)
2 (7)
.4 (7.5)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
0 (9)
1 (9)
2 (9)
8 (5)
27 (2)
23 (2)
Intelligence
20 (2)
17 (2)
15 (3)
5 (7.5)
.5 (8.5)
.4 (9)
Other
8 (5)
12 (4)
11 (6)
12 (3)
14 (4)
16 (3)
N =
71
298
274
65
214
223
Conan, Leno and Letterman Combined
Late Night Television is Letterman, Leno and Conan
* Spearman's rho = .733, p<.05
Table 4.9: Exposure to Daily Show, Participants' Negative
Attributes of Candidates and Negative Attributes of Presidential
Candidate on Daily Show
BUSH
KERRY
TV / Jokes
Viewers
Non-Viewers
TV / Jokes
Viewers
Non-Viewers
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
Ideology / Vision
19 (2)
15 (3.5)
9 (6.5)
8 (5)
19 (3)
10 (4)
Bio and Record
8 (5.5)
20 (1)
14 (3)
4 (7)
4 (5)
4 (6)
Integrity and Values
3 (9)
7 (7)
8 (8)
4 (7)
3 (6)
5 (5)
Personality / Image
11 (4)
18 (2)
16 (2)
23 (2)
37 (1)
35 (1)
War
16 (3)
11 (5)
12 (5)
12 (4)
1 (8)
1 (8.5)
Speaking / Debates
24 (1)
2 (9)
9 (6.5)
19 (3)
2.3 (7)
2 (7)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
5 (7.5)
3 (8)
1 (9)
27 (1)
24 (2)
26 (2)
Intelligence
8 (5.5)
15 (3.5)
17 (1)
0 (9)
0 (9)
1 (8.5)
Other
5 (7.5)
10 (6)
13 (4)
4 (7)
11 (4)
17 (3)
N =
37
245
327
26
151
286
Table 4.10: Experiment Video And Experiment Group's Negative
Candidate Attributes
BUSH
KERRY
Video
Viewers
Video*
Viewers*
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
Ideology / Vision
9 (5)
25 (1.5)
6 (4.5)
13 (4)
Bio and Record
25 (1.5)
19 (3)
3 (6)
0 (8)
Integrity and Values
0 (9)
6 (6)
0 (8)
13 (4)
Personality / Image
13 (3.5)
6 (6)
23 (2)
13 (4)
War
13 (3.5)
25 (1.5)
0 (8)
0 (8)
Speaking / Debates
6 (6.5)
6 (6)
10 (3)
13 (4)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
3 (8)
0 (8.5)
52 (1)
38 (1)
Intelligence
25 (1.5)
0 (8.5)
0 (8)
0 (8)
Other
6 (6.5)
13 (4)
6 (4.5)
13 (4)
N =
32
16
31
8
* Spearman's rho = .761, p<.01
Table 4.11: The Big 3 Shows Viewers' Negative Bush Attributes, the 3
Big Shows' Negative Attributes of Bush and Party Affiliation
Late-Night Jokes
Democratic
Republican
Independent
% (RO)*
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
Ideology / Vision
6 (7)
11 (5)
12 (4.5)
19 (1.5)
Bio and Record
7 (6)
18 (1)
9 (6)
19 (1.5)
Integrity and Values
1 (8)
7 (7)
6 (8)
6 (7.5)
Personality / Image
34 (1)
16 (3)
29 (1)
6 (7.5)
War
14 (3)
10 (6)
12 (4.5)
10 (5.5)
Speaking / Debates
10 (4)
5 (8)
15 (2.5)
10 (5.5)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
0 (9)
1 (9)
0 (9)
0 (9)
Intelligence
20 (2)
17 (2)
15 (2.5)
16 (3)
Other
8 (5)
15 (4)
3 (7)
13 (4)
N =
71
164
34
31
Conan, Leno and Letterman Combined
* Spearman's rho = .824, p<.01
Table 4.12: Daily Show Viewers' Negative Bush Attributes, Daily
Show's Negative Attributes of Bush and Party Affiliation
Daily Show Jokes*
Democratic
Republican*
Independent
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
Ideology / Vision
19 (2)
13 (4)
23 (1.5)
16 (3)
Bio and Record
8 (5.5)
23 (1)
9 (5.5)
17 (2)
Integrity and Values
3 (9)
8 (7)
5 (7)
6 (7)
Personality / Image
11 (4)
15 (2.5)
23 (1.5)
22 (1)
War
16 (3)
10 (6)
14 (4)
14 (4)
Speaking / Debates
24 (1)
1 (9)
9 (5.5)
3 (8)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
5 (7.5)
4 (8)
0 (8.5)
1 (9)
Intelligence
8 (5.5)
15 (2.5)
18 (3)
13 (5)
Other
5 (7.5)
11 (5)
0 (8.5)
7 (6)
N =
37
132
22
69
* Spearman's rho =.660, p<.05
Table 4.13: The 3 Big Show Viewers' Negative Kerry Attributes, the 3
Big Shows' Negative Attributes of Kerry and Party Affiliation
Late-Night Jokes*
Democratic*
Republican
Independent
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
Ideology / Vision
9 (4)
8 (4)
18 (3)
11 (3)
Bio and Record
6 (6)
5 (5)
4 (6)
0 (6.5)
Integrity and Values
2 (9)
5 (5)
4 (6)
0 (6.5)
Personality / Image
40 (1)
41 (1)
25 (2)
56 (1)
War
5 (7.5)
0 (8.5)
1 (8)
0 (6.5)
Speaking / Debates
14 (2)
2 (7)
1 (8)
0 (6.5)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
8 (5)
24 (2)
31 (1)
33 (2)
Intelligence
5 (7.5)
0 (8.5)
1 (8)
0 (6.5)
Other
12 (3)
17 (3)
13 (4)
0 (6.5)
N =
65
59
106
9
Conan, Leno and Letterman Combined
* Spearman's rho = .613, p<.05
Table 4.14: Table 4.10: Daily Show Viewers' Negative Kerry
Attributes, Daily Show's Negative Attributes of Kerry and Party Affiliation
Daily Show Jokes
Democratic
Republican
Independent
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
% (RO)
Ideology / Vision
8 (5)
15 (4)
23 (3)
19 (2)
Bio and Record
4 (7)
4 (5)
2 (6.5)
5 (5.5)
Integrity and Values
4 (7)
2 (6)
6 (5)
3 (7)
Personality / Image
23 (2)
35 (1)
27 (2)
43 (1)
War
12 (4)
0 (8)
2 (6.5)
0 (8.5)
Speaking / Debates
19 (3)
0 (8)
0 (8.5)
5 (5.5)
Flip Flop / Decisiveness
27 (1)
25 (2)
31 (1)
14 (3)
Intelligence
0 (9)
0 (8)
0 (8.5)
0 (8.5)
Other
4 (7)
19 (3)
8 (4)
11 (4)
N =
26
48
48
37
p>.05
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[1] This age category is by Pew Research studies, rather than other
organizations that classify young voters as ages 18-24.
[2] It is important to note the different exposure definition of
"never or seldom" watchers from the larger Web-based survey study of
non-watchers and watchers. The experiment was related to the overall
study, but should be seen as a separate smaller study to examine
those who have little exposure to late night television.
[3] The alternating experiment and control rooms were set up
similarly with a TV, couches, chairs and tables in an on-campus
student building.
[4] Response rates for Internet surveys range from 7 to 44 percent.
(Schonlau, Fricker & Elliot, 2002). Web surveys continue to yield a
variety of response rates.
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