The Daily Show’s distrustful but knowledgeable viewers

May 15, 2006

An interesting report was published in the May issue of American Politics Research, a poli sci journal, which suggests that young Americans’ political views are “negatively impacted” by watching my favorite show, [tag]The Daily Show[/tag] with [tag]Jon Stewart[/tag]. From the report:

We test the effects of a popular televised source of political humor for young Americans: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. We find that participants exposed to jokes about George W. Bush and John Kerry on The Daily Show tended to rate both candidates more negatively, even when controlling for partisanship and other demographic variables. Moreover, we find that viewers exhibit more [tag]cynicism[/tag] toward the electoral system and the news media at large. Despite these negative reactions, viewers of The Daily Show reported increased confidence in their ability to understand the complicated world of politics.

Apparently, according to these researchers, if you watched TDS, you were more [tag]cynical[/tag] than if you watched the CBS Evening News. Maybe so.

On the other hand, cynicism is not necessarily a negative. According to a study done two years ago, TDS watchers are also better [tag]informed[/tag].

…”Daily Show” viewers know more about election issues than people who regularly read newspapers or watch television news, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey.

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, a senior research analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, said “Daily Show” viewers came out on top “even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news, receiving campaign information online, age and gender are taken into consideration.”

So, Daily Show viewers are [tag]distrustful[/tag] but [tag]knowledgeable[/tag]? It doesn’t sound so bad.

I think the latter explains the former: the more you know about politics, the more cynical you become about politics.

  • Daily Show viewers are distrustful but knowledgeable

    Gee, sounds like everyone I’ve ever met with at least some college education that has bothered to pay attention to national politics in this country over the last 10-20 years.

    So the question is: Are Daily Show viewers distrustful and knowledgable because they watch the Daily Show? or

    Do people watch the Daily Show because they are distrustful and knowledgable?

    The latter, me thinks.

  • “Moreover, we find that viewers exhibit more cynicism toward the electoral system and the news media at large.”

    Um. I think I can state, pretty much as a truism, that the electoral system and the news media deserve a good deal of cynicism.

    Without reading this study, it sounds like someone has an agenda against The Daily Show.

    Also, look for this to turn up in some traditional media pundit’s column soon – “those slacker youngsters with their Starbucks and their Jon Stewart – they’re the problem with the country today!”

  • And it goes without saying that anyone who still trusts this sadministration is very, very unknowledgable.

  • If it were not for Jon Stewart and the internet I think I would have lost my mind during the last few years. I wonder why viewers of TDS are more cynical that the rest of the TV drugged country? It must be that pesky habit we have of reading more than one source, and being suspicious of official explainations. By the way, not all viewers of TDS are twenty or thirty something. Stewart and (now) Colbert are watched by many. I wonder how long it will take for Bush & Co to derail Comedy central?

  • I love The Daily Show. Funny and topical. I think these results are similar to studies showing the more education you have the less religious you are. Blah blah blah….

    Have they studied how watching Jay Leno and David Letterman monologues impacts opinions on politics and candidates? I cannot see how it would be any different.

    How are young people’s views of government and politics impacted by incessant Republikan fear mongering?

  • Unfortunately, farce is our last refuge. Helpless to fight the evil without tearing apart our country, the least we can do is strip it of its guilding and laugh at the pathetic players.

    After all, that is what Bush fears most. To be reduced to a snivelling wretch in the history books. (Doubt this? Go take a look at how many times he has mentioned his legacy, or how historians will look on this era. Then take a look at how many times he has mentioned reading biographies of past presidents. This guy is obsessed with his legacy. Perhaps fitting that he will go down as the worst_president_ever)

  • Being a published political scientist sounds even more boring and soul-destroying than I imagined.

  • Like Eugene, Oregon said, I wouldn’t say “distrustful but knowledgable” as if this were an either/or relationship, but a therefore/because-of relationship.

    I would definitely be interested in exploring the direction of the causal relationship that Gridlock mentions, however. Do we watch the Daily Show because we are distrustful and knowledgable, or does watching the Daily Show make us distrustful and knowledgable? Hmm…

    My GF has been pressing me to start a blog so she can occasionally ruminate and rant on certain things that she’s passionate about. I think I’ve finally come up with an idea for a blog I could start. Sunday Discussion, every day. Exploring questions like this one.

  • Here’s the thing: The Daily Show operates on the assumption that its audience has at least a superficial knowledge of what is happening politically. That means that the people who gravitate to the show are indeed going to be better informed. TDS also assumes that its audience can see the obvious, e.g. playing a clip of Cheney saying “I never said that”, then a clip from a year earlier of Cheney saying exactly what he never said. Or the classic episode where President Bush debated Candidate Bush. At such moments, the Daily Show demonstrates more perspective than the “real” news — as such, it does a better job of providing genuinely useful information to its audience.

    The Daily Show doesn’t cause cynicism. It merely points it out.

  • I’m with gridlock.

    Did it occur the test-givers that people who are cynical/distrustful might be attracted to TDS and not cynical/distrusful because of watching TDS?

    Did they check the political feelings before these subjects started watching TDS and then compare them after or just ask the questions from people who watch?

  • I want a copy of that Candidate Bush v President Bush debate! Where can I dig this up?

  • So, is American Politics Research trying to say watching Jon Stewart and the Daily Show is a good thing or a bad thing?

    Being a pretty constant watcher of the next day repeats (I can’t stay up that late and get to work on time) I find Stewart and Colbert are a nice way to round out the day’s new and commentary.

    I have no doubt we viewers of TDS are better informed. Jon does a good job of that 😉

  • I had an Italian (Sicilian) friend in my mid-’50s high school class who told me that the Italian’s instinct, on seeing either a priest or a politician, is to throw a rock.

    Maybe at least a piece of our fundamentally Puritanical nation really is growing up at last. I think it’s easily established, from mountains of research, that Tee Vee doesn’t twist people’s minds. It may bore them, it may misinform them or not inform them, but it doesn’t engineer thought. The people who watch The Daily Show, including me (taped version), go there because we want what Jon Stewart dishes out so well: genuine comedy, painful to the comfortably pompous. Just like Aristophanes, Molière and Colbert.

    Incidentally, I just realized: both TDS and TCB usually feature the twin targets my Italian friend told me about a half-century ago — political commentary (often humorous) and This Week in God (almost always humorous). Diami una pietra, e buongiorno!

  • The pollster’s conclusion begs the questions “Are we living in times that require cycnicism?” The answer is a definite yes. The Pravda-like lines and spin we see stenographed by other forms of media lead the informed person to question anything this government says or does. For anyone who isn’t cynical in these times, is that grape kool-aid or fruit punch kool-aid? That Golden Hour on Comedy Central with Stewart and Colbert is one of the few places informed people can go to see thoughtful evaluation of the day’s events.

  • I’m with Ed. I don’t think viewers tune into TDS with the idea of “let’s see what politics is all about.” This is a self-selecting group who are reassured by Jon’s look of amazement at the batshit world we live in. It’s essential for some of us to see we are not the insane ones. It may reinforce the cynicism (a healthy thing as so many commenters have pointed out), but it’s not the genesis of it.

  • “Are we living in times that require cycnicism?”

    If you want democracy to survive, then uh, yeah. I’m afraid so.

  • I wonder if there is a correlation between watching “That Golden Hour” (ps I like that description!) and increased political activism, or any activism at all. It’s one thing to be cynical, but quite another to do anything about it. Without doing anything (and I don’t claim to be much of an activist beyond taking the occassional bag of groceries to the local food bank), aren’t we just congratulating ourselves for recognizing a fraud when we see one and feeling superior to those who don’t see it yet?

  • Moreover, we find that viewers exhibit more cynicism toward the electoral system and the news media at large.
    Gee, cynicism has such an ugly ring to it. I much prefer the term wide-eyed realist.

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