Late Night TV
NOTE: I AM NOW OUT OF HIATUS
Hey folks (or however many of you actually read my blogs), sorry for not uploading for the past three months. I’ve actually been thinking of changing the format of my project, but for now I’ll continue making blogs until that happens.
As you can see from the title, this post will be about late night tv. How many of you watch late night tv? Maybe I should make a poll on this.
However relevant this specific format of entertainment may be to you, politics and news are generally regarded as important subjects. It’s especially fascinating when considering its impact on/use of, well, humor psychology. But what I initially found the most interesting was the sheer amount of research done on this topic– and by “topic” I mean specifically the psychological impact of late night comedy. In hindsight I guess it was to be expected given its political/informational nature, but I digress.
Throughout all the sources I’ve found, the general consensus seems to be that late night tv highly influences political knowledge, public opinion, and attracts certain audiences based on cognitive factors.
Audience
The satirical humor used in late night comedy promotes political engagement by causing reactions of anger or worry. This effect is further reinforced through involvement in internet communities/discussions. The combination of negative emotions and varied discussion could lead to further education. Therefore, it is claimed that late night comedy encourages the well-educated to engage in politics.
Young adults are also more likely to share and remember news presented with humor, according to a study from the Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania and the School of Communication at Ohio State University.
In addition to young adults, late night comedy (or political satire) generally attracts liberal audiences. This could be explained by the different needs for cognition (enjoying thinking/analyzing problems) between conservatives and liberals, which lead to more/less appreciation of irony and exaggeration. In other words, each side views humor differently; conservatives tend to not appreciate humor (irony), while liberals do.
Cognitive Effects
In general, Comedy is inherently social; watching humor in the news activates areas of the brain concerned with the thoughts and feelings of others, aka social engagement.
Humor is shown to highly affect attention, moderately affect comprehension, and have seemingly no effect on persuasion. According to psychology research, humor doesn’t minimize persuasion but encourages cognitive elaboration (the process of your brain connecting new knowledge with previous knowledge). Although humor encourages cognitive elaboration, it simultaneously serves as an obstacle to critical thinking. A study exposing participants to different humor stimuli (jokes) from late night tv came to the same conclusion; when arguments are presented with humor, people are less likely to critically analyze it (if the joke is found funny, that is). This attitude may change over time as people are repeatedly exposed to late night political jokes.
A Very Fast Conclusion
Overall, humor has the ability to increase political knowledge, especially since entertainment-based media has become a more important source for young adults. Learning from late night comedy shows has been increasing (although not as a replacement for regular news), the boundary between entertainment and information blurring with it. Thanks for reading, and as always, stay tuned for next month(hopefully)!
Works Cited
??? (2022, January 17). ??? - YouTube. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.966.6514&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Dolan, E. W. (2019, May 11). Underlying psychological traits could explain why political satire tends to be liberal. PsyPost. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.psypost.org/2019/05/underlying-psychological-traits-could-explain-why-political-satire-tends-to-be-liberal-53666
The Privileged Role of the Late-Night Joke: Exploring Humor's Role in Disrupting Argument Scrutiny. (n.d.). TerpConnect. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://terpconnect.umd.edu/~nan/738readings/Young%202008%20late%20night%20jokes.pdf
“That Show Really Spoke to Me!”: The Effects of Compatible Psychological Needs and Talk Show Host Style on Audience Activity. (n.d.). International Journal of Communication. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/3751/1632
Yount, A. (2021, January 6). Delivering the News with Humor Makes Young Adults More Likely to Remember and Share. Annenberg School for Communication. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/delivering-news-humor-makes-young-adults-more-likely-remember-and-share
