Exposure to Political Disparagement Humor and Its Impact on Trust in Politicians: How Long Does It Last?

Abstract

The experimental research that looks into the effects of political humor on an individual’s attitudes toward politics and politicians does not evaluate its long-term effects. With this in mind, this study aims to determine the possible effects that being exposed to humor which belittles politicians may have on an ordinary citizen’s trust in them, while at the same time it observes the possible effects that such exposure has on them and the time such effects last. Two hypotheses were tested. The first one was that humor involves less cognitive elaboration, which leads to a short-term impact on the perception of the individual. The second one was that the repetition of a message can augment the swing of such message. Also, a series of elements regarding disposition toward politicians and political affiliation were considered. Two experiments were designed. The first experiment, (N = 94), considered three groups: one exposed to political disparagement humor; one control group exposed to disparagement humor against non-politician subjects; and a control group exposed to a non-humorous political video. Trust in politicians was evaluated first at baseline, then immediately after the experimental manipulation, and once again a week after the experimental manipulation had happened. In the second experiment (N = 146), participants were randomly assigned to one experimental and two control groups. The trust in politicians of the three groups was estimated and they were sent political cartoons, non-political cartoons, and newspaper headlines regarding political topics twice a day for a week via WhatsApp. Trust in politicians among the three groups was assessed again after 1 week, and for a third time 1 week after that. As a result, it was observed that a one-off exposure to political disparagement humor affects trust in politicians negatively; however, the effect it attains is short-lived and can be explained through the political content of the item and not only humor. Also, being exposed to cartoons constantly for a week had no impact whatsoever on the way politics and politicians were perceived during the time the experiment was carried out. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

How Satirical News Impacts Affective Responses, Learning, and Persuasion: A Three-Level Random-Effects Meta-Analysis

“…An important caveat for these audience-characteristics effects lies in the fact that a large majority of studies was conducted in the United States (RQ1b). The few studies from other areas of the world come from a wide range of countries in Europe (e.g., Boukes et al, 2015), Asia (e.g., Chen et al, 2017), and South America (e.g., Mendiburo-Seguel et al, 2017). US satire is highly partisan (Young, 2019), but satire in other countries may be more ambiguous (Brugman et al, 2020).…”

Comedy of Socio-political Tragedies in Nigerian Popular Culture

“…Inferred from Uwanamodo's (2019) argument, this becomes possible as comedy categorizes people with similar experiences into a group while the disparaged entity automatically falls into the other group thereby creating a "we" and "them" situation. People construct their social identity, morale, and cohesion through the comparison and positive distinctiveness of the groups they belong to; in-groups, with the out-groups to 'sustain the morale and cohesion of groups (Mendiburo-Seguel et al, 2017;Tavory, 2014;Fine, 1984). DH can, therefore, be used as a way to obtain a separate positive identity, especially when the out-group has been linked with some negativity.…”

“…Rather than being bewildered by social problems, Nigerians could turn them into entertainment. According to Mendiburo-Seguel, Vargas, & Rubio (2017), comedy could be grouped into two types; political and non-political. Although Nigerians joke about different social issues, one major theme in the country's comedy has to do with disparaging Nigerian politics, government, and its various consequences (Afolayan, 2013;Obadare, 2009).…”

Comedy of Socio-political Tragedies in Nigerian Popular Culture

“…This could explain the unperturbed attitude of Nigerians to the revolutionary music, 'Shuffering and Shmiling', as submitted by Eesuola (2015). This principle can also be applied to the political terrain, considering that when a political administration is disparaged, the administered will be in a good disposition to accept the negative descriptions attributed to such polity (Mendiburo-Seguel, Vargas, & Rubio, 2017).…”