The effects of political satire on political participation
Danique de Prez
11399597
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication
Master’s programme Communication Science
Supervisor: Mark Boukes
Date of completion: 29-06-2017
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Abstract
This study investigates the effects of political satire on political participation. This has been tested with the case of the Dutch political satire show Zondag met Lubach compared to the Dutch traditional NOS news. To assess causality an online experiment has been conducted. Expected was that the effect of political satire on political participation would be mediated by, respectively, internal political efficacy and political trust. Also expected was that the effect of watching political satire on political participation would be bigger than the effect of watching traditional news on political participation. No significant differences have been found
between political satire and traditional news and their effects on political participation. This means that political satire does not have a bigger effect on political participation than traditional news. There was only one effect significant, which was the positive effect of internal political efficacy on political participation. The effect of political satire on political participation was not mediated by internal political efficacy and political trust. The limitations and implications for further research are also discussed.
Keywords: political satire, political participation, political trust, internal political efficacy.
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Introduction
In the current political climate, people, and especially younger people, are participating less in politics. Young people are also less knowledgeable about politics and less interested in
politics (Delli Carpini, 2000).At the same time, younger people spend less time watching traditional news (Mindich, 2005), which could also contribute to the fact that young people are less knowledgeable about politics. One of the reasons for this decline in political participation of young people is that younger people do not believe that participating in politics is effective. Young people also participate less because they lack important
information about politics (Delli Carpini, 2000). This decline of political participation is bad for democracy. Because if young people participate less, they will also be represented less. This is because ideally politicians listen to the voters, and if only certain groups go voting, politicians do not get the opinions of the whole society. This in turn could result in biases in policy making (Stevens, 2012).
So young people are turning away from watching traditional news. However, it seems that young people are instead watching political satire programs, such as The Daily Show in the United States and Zondag met Lubach in the Netherlands. These satire programs can also have effects. As Holbert (2005) argued, it is important to study political satire, as it offers a different perspective on how news is told, which could potentially also have different effects on people. These different effects can also be positive as previous literature found positive effects of political satire on political efficacy (Baumgartner & Morris, 2006) and political participation (Hoffman & Young, 2011; Moy, Xenos & Hess, 2005).
However there is also research that did not find any effects of political satire on political participation, for example Cao & Brewer (2008). But as they also mention
themselves, they used self-reported measures, which could be the reason that they did not find any effects. Cao and Brewer (2008) were not the only study that used self-reported measures,
4 as also Becker (2011), Hoffman and Young (2011), Hoffman and Thomson (2009) and Moy et al. (2005) used self-reported measures. This study will do an experiment to assess the causality of the effects.
To see if political satire really has a positive effect on political participation, this study will investigate the effects of political satire on political participation. It will also be
investigated if political satire has a bigger effect on political participation than traditional news. This will be done with the following research question: how does exposure to political
satire affect citizen’s political participation relative to watching traditional news? There are
reasons to believe that internal political efficacy and political trust are mediators between political satire and political participation (Hoffman & Thomson, 2009). However there are not many studies that take both mediators into account in one study, which is important to get the whole picture of the effects of political satire. Therefore this study will also look at the possible mediators internal political efficacy and political trust.
Most research about the effects of political satire has been done in the United States with satire shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (Baumgartner & Morris, 2006; Guggenheim, Kwak & Campbell, 2011; Hoffman & Young, 2011; Hoffman &
Thomson, 2009; Lee & Kwak, 2014). This study will look beyond the United States and study political satire in context of the Netherlands. It is beneficial to study political satire in a
different context than the United States, because political landscapes are different across countries. Therefore this study will look at the Dutch satire show Zondag met Lubach.
Theoretical background Political Satire
As written before young people watch less traditional news and more political satire. 50% of these young people say they got some news from satire programs, in contrast with 12% of people older than 50 years old (Pew Research Center, 2004). Only 23% of people between 18
5 and 29 say they regularly learn something about the elections from traditional news (Pew Research Center, 2004).
So there is something about satire that interests young people and also learns them something about politics. People do not watch satire to learn something from it, they watch it because they want to be entertained (Baum, 2003). Because of this, it is no surprise that satire is often labelled as soft news. According to Reinemann, Stanyer, Scherr and Legnante (2012, p. 13) “the more a news item is not politically relevant, the more it reports in an episodic way, focuses on individual consequences of events, is personal and emotional in style, the more it can be regarded as soft news”. Traditional television news on the other hand can be regarded as hard news. According to Reinemann et al. (2012, p. 13) “the more a news item is politically relevant, the more it reports in a thematic way, focuses on the societal consequences of
events, is impersonal and unemotional in its style, the more it can be regarded as hard news”. While satire seems to be mostly used for entertainment, there is a lot of politics discussed. Brewer and Marquardt (2007) found that more than half of the news stories in The Daily Show contained political topics. So labelling satire as soft news, might not be the best categorization. Holbert (2005) offers a better categorization of political entertainment. According to Holbert (2005) political entertainment can be divided into two dimensions. The first dimension is whether the content in a show is primarily or secondary political. The second dimension is whether the nature of the political messages in the show are explicit or implicit. In political satire the messages are implicit and the content is primarily political (Holbert, 2005). All forms of political satire use pre-existing genres (Knight, 2004). For example The Daily Show uses parts of traditional news and mixes this with parts of a comedy talk show (Baym, 2005).
When looking about satire, it is necessary to distinguish between different types of satire. The two most important forms of political satire are juvenalian and horatian satire.
6 According to Bogel (2001) both forms use humour to create laughter and in both forms there is some aggression involved. But there are differences, juvenalian satire is very harsh in its tone, while horatian satire is lighter (Sander, 1971). Sander (1971) also describes this difference by classifying juvenalian satire as tragedy and horatian as comedy.
Political Satire and Political Trust
Political satire does not have to be objective when presenting the news (Baym, 2005). This is because political satirists do not see themselves as journalists, so they do not have follow the journalistic conventions. Traditional news on the other hand is made by journalists, so they do have to follow the journalistic conventions and have to be objective. However traditional news has had some problems when producing news. Because of the decreasing audience, there was less money for the traditional news, so journalists had to be fired (Lewis, Williams & Franklin, 2008). As a result there are less journalists to check stories and most of the time they only report the facts, but without critically looking at the facts. Satirists do look critically at stories and facts and encourage their viewers to do this as well (Gray et al., 2008). Satirists also attack the traditional news for not doing their job right (Baym, 2005).
When discussing politics, satirists mostly talk about politicians, and specifically the political leaders. Niven, Lichter and Amundson (2003) found that nine out of ten jokes are directed at political leaders and not at political issues. When satirists are looking for the truth they often judge politicians when they believe politicians have done something wrong (Test, 1991). This exposing of wrongdoings of politicians is mostly in the form of an attack, which is very negative. Although the intentions of exposing politicians can be positive, the way in which this is done is very negative (Gray et al., 2008).According to Knight (2004) an
important part of satire is to attack someone. Attacking someone has a negative tone and this negative portrayal of politics and politicians can increase negative emotions towards politics (Lee & Kwak, 2014). Because satire focuses on things that politicians do badly, this can result
7 in citizens believing their lack of understanding is not because of themselves, but because of the system (Baumgartner & Morris, 2006).
So after watching political satire trust in politics can go down, which is also found by some studies (Baumgartner & Morris, 2006, Guggenheim et al., 2011). Political trust can be seen as “an individual’s faith or confidence that he or she can trust the government to do what is right” (Becker, 2011, p. 237). It is expected that after watching political satire trust in politics will go down, so Hypothesis 1a is:
H1a: people who watch political satire have a lower trust in politics than people who watch traditional news.
It is also expected that political knowledge, in this case background information, will moderate the effect of political satire on political trust. As Young (2004) argued, when people with background information receive political messages, they evaluate this based on their previous knowledge. Because they have more knowledge about the topic, they are more likely to see the persuasive intent of political satire and therefore will be more resistant to it (Young, 2004). So people without this background knowledge will be less resistant to what is said in political satire and therefore the effects of political satire will be stronger for them. It is expected that for people without background information, trust will be lower after watching political satire. Hypothesis 1b will thus be:
H1b: the effect of political satire on political trust will be stronger for people without background information.
There is no consensus in the literature about whether the low trust after watching political satire results in more or less participation.Some studies found that when political trust is low, people will participate less (Austin & Pinkleton, 1995; Pinkleton, Austin & Fortman, 1998). This is because low trust in politics can alienate people from politics, which can lead to less participation (Hooghe & Marien, 2013). However, Lee and Kwak (2014)
8 found that negative emotions towards the government result in more political participation. It can also be argued that a little scepticism could be good for democracy, because looking critically to politics, could help a person make the right decision, instead of just following what is said in politics. Because there is contrasting evidence about the effect of trust on participation, a question instead of a hypothesis is formed:
RQ: How does political trust affect political participation?
Political Satire and Internal Political Efficacy
In contrast with political trust, political satire can have a positive effect on the internal political efficacy of an individual (Becker, 2011; Hoffman & Thomson, 2009; Hoffman & Young, 2011). Internal political efficacy can be described as: “individuals’ beliefs about one’s own competence to understand and to participate effectively in politics” (Niemi, Craig, & Mattei, 1991, p. 1408).
The first possible reason for this positive effect of political satire on internal political efficacy is that political satire often takes more time to talk about a topic than traditional news (Baym, 2005). By taking more time explaining a topic, satirists place topics in a broader context. They thus provide more background knowledge this way (Baym, 2005). Satirists also explain this in a way that simplifies politics. While political satire is a form of entertainment, this does not mean that it contains less information than traditional news, as Fox, Koloen and Sahin (2007) found no significant differences in the average amount of substance in the broadcast network news and the political satire show The Daily Show.
People also process information better when there is humour involved. According to Young (2008, p. 121) “effortful cognitive processing is required to understand humour”. The laughter at the end of a joke can be seen as a reward (Nabi, Moyer-Gusé & Byrne, 2007). This reward is not present at traditional news, therefore people pay less attention and also possibly get less information from it. Because of this viewers are mostly more absorbed in the message
9 when humour is used (Slater & Rouner, 2002). Next to this, Boukes et al. (2015) found that the funnier the people thought the message was, the more absorbed they were in the message. It was also found that younger people are more absorbed than older people in political satire than in traditional news (Boukes et al., 2015).
So for all these reasons, after watching satire, it is more likely that an individual believes he or she has the competence to participate in politics, thus it can increase their internal political efficacy. Hypothesis 2a is:
H2a: people who watch political satire have a higher degree of internal political efficacy than people who watch traditional news.
It is also expected that political knowledge, in this case background information about a topic, will be a moderator. With more knowledge about a certain topic, thus background information, before watching satire, a person will be more able to understand the content. With background knowledge the satirical message will be easier understood (Knight, 2004). People watching satire have to participate actively to get the message, and this is easier when people have background knowledge (Gray et al., 2008). When people have background knowledge about a certain topic, they process new information linking it to their knowledge. This can lead to people feeling more competent, thus a higher internal political efficacy. Therefore with background information internal political efficacy will be higher.Jung, Kim and Gil de Zúñiga (2011) also found a positive relationship between internal political efficacy and political knowledge. So Hypotheses 2b is:
H2b: The effect of political satire on internal political efficacy will be stronger for people with background information.
When someone has a high internal political efficacy, he or she believes that he or she has the competence to make a difference. When people believe they can make a difference and also feel competent to do so, this can result in more political participation (Finkel &
10 Muller, 1998; Gastil & Xenos, 2010; Jung et al., 2011). So more internal political efficacy could lead to more political participation. That the effect of satire on political participation is mediated through political efficacy is also found by Becker (2011) and Hoffman and Young (2011). So Hypothesis 3 is:
H3: people who have a higher internal political efficacy are more likely to participate in politics than people who have a lower internal political efficacy.
Political Satire and Political Participation
While in this research it is expected that the effect of political satire on political participation goes via the mediators political trust and internal political efficacy, previous research has also found an overall positive effect of satire on participation (Moy et al., 2005). A definition of political participation is: “all voluntary activities by individual citizens intended to influence either directly or indirectly political choices at various levels of the political system” (Kaase and Marsh, 1979, p. 42).
There are conventional and unconventional forms of political participation.
Conventional participation is participation that takes place through institutionalized means (Melo & Stockemer, 2014, p. 34). Examples of this are voting, campaigning or joining a political party. Unconventional participation on the other hand is participation that is not institutionalized (Melo & Stockemer, 2014, p. 35). Examples of this are protests, boycotting things, signing petitions and demonstrations. Nowadays younger people are more
participating in the unconventional ways of participation (Bennet, 2008). For this reason it is important to look at both ways of participating, therefore, this study looks at both ways.
Political satire shows create an imagined community among viewers and by using humour it makes politics more enjoyable (Mutz, 1998, p. 22). This can lead to more political participation. Because of the reasons mentioned before it is expected that political
11 After watching political satire it is more likely that people feel more able to participate than after watching traditional news, because for example they got more information from political satire. The last hypothesis will be:
H4: people who watch political satire participate more in politics than people who watch traditional news.
The hypothesized effects can be found in figure 1.
Figure 1, model with the hypothesized effects.
Methods Design
To test the hypotheses an online experiment with a 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design was conducted. The first factor had two levels: political satire versus traditional news. The second factor was the provision of background information and also had two levels: no background information versus background information. So there were four conditions: political satire with background information (n = 34), political satire (n = 42), traditional news with background information (n = 35), traditional news (n = 38).
Political satire Political efficacy Political participation Political trust Background information
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Background information12
Stimulus materials
Political satire video. The political satire video was a video from the Dutch satire
show Zondag met Lubach. The show airs on Sunday evening and each episode is 30 minutes long. In this show the host Arjen Lubach talks about the most important news of the week. He presents the news in a funny way, but also tries to show the audience the wrongdoings of politicians and also the mainstream media. There are usually up to four items in one show. So the show spends a lot of attention to the topics. The show has become much more popular over time. While in the first season there were around 300.000 viewers per episode, in the last season there were around 1 million viewers per episode (Stichting Kijkonderzoek, n.d.)
The video of Zondag met Lubach that was used for this study was from 14 December 2014 and dealt with ICT problems in the government. The length of the video was 4.13 minutes. This video was the shortened version of the original video that had a length of 8.30 minutes. The video was about the report of a second chamber committee about ICT problems in the government. The biggest problems were that the expenses were too high and that there was not enough ICT knowledge in the government.
There were a couple of things Arjen Lubach made fun of. He first made fun of the head of the committee, Ton Elias, because according to Arjen Lubach with Ton Elias as its presenter it could not be more sexless. Later in the video Arjen Lubach also jokes about the fact that Ton Elias compares the ICT expenses to an expensive car. Arjen Lubach also made fun of the head of the second chamber at that time, Anouchka van Miltenburg, because she didn’t know what the abbreviation ICT stands for. He ridicules a government website that costs a lot of money, because the main purpose of this expensive website is to give away even more money. Arjen Lubach is also sarcastic about the fact that the government cannot be specific about their expenses, because the total of ICT expenses of the government are
13 This solution is the establishment of a temporary independent ICT authority. This temporary authority is being ridiculed by Arjen Lubach. According to Arjen Lubach they have to be more radical than just establishing a temporary ICT authority. That is why he proposes to create a Department of ICT (or as he calls it the Department of the 21st century).
Traditional news video. The traditional news video was a video from the Dutch
traditional news from the NOS. This is the news program from the public broadcasting
television. The most important news is the 8 o’ clock news, which is 25 minutes long and also includes a part about the weather. The 8 o’ clock news has around 2 million viewers each day (Stichting Kijkonderzoek, n.d.).
The video from the traditional news was a video from the 8 o’ clock news from the
NOS on 15 October 2014. The length of the clip was 4.07 minutes and was also about ICT
problems in the government. This video starts by talking about the report that is presented by Ton Elias. Like in the Zondag met Lubach video it is said that Ton Elias compares ICT with a car. Where Arjen Lubach made a joke about this, the NOS news only states it as a fact. The clip that was used in Zondag met Lubach of the head of the second chamber, Anouchka van Miltenburg, is also shown. But this time without making fun of her. When the presenter talks about ICT projects that went wrong, the same website that Zondag met Lubach used, is also used. The solution of the independent ICT authority is also named. Lastly some ICT
entrepreneurs are interviewed and talk about the fact that it is hard to estimate the ICT expenses. So the main parts are both named by Zondag met Lubach and the NOS news, but where the NOS news only states the facts, Zondag met Lubach makes fun of most of the conclusions of the report presented by Ton Elias and also adds its own solution of the department of ICT to it.
Background information. The background information was an article from the NOS
14 article is a short version of the conclusions of the committee from Ton Elias about the ICT problems in the government. It is mentioned that there are a lot of problems with ICT projects of the government and that the government does not have enough knowledge about ICT. The high expenses between 1 and 5 billion are also named. Lastly the solution of the independent ICT authority is explained.
Manipulation check
To see if the manipulations of the video were successful, participants had to agree or disagree on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 to 7, with statements regarding the videos. The first was “the video was funny”. To see if there were significant differences, an ANOVA with the video condition (i.e., political satire versus traditional news) as independent variable and the manipulation check question as dependent variable was conducted. If the manipulation was successful the political satire video should be funnier than the video with traditional news. There were significant differences between political satire (M = 5.84, SD = .99) and
traditional news (M = 2.42, SD = 1.50), F(1, 147) = 270.94, p = .000. So the manipulations of the videos were successful.
A second statement was “the video was serious”. For this also an ANOVA with the video condition (political satire or traditional news) as independent variable and the
manipulation check question as dependent variable was conducted. If the manipulation was successful the traditional news video should be found more serious than the political satire video. There were significant differences between political satire (M = 4.70, SD = 1.62) and traditional news (M = 6.11, SD = .77), F(1, 147) = 45.64, p = .000. So the manipulations of the videos were again successful.
It was also asked if the participants found the video informative. There were no significant differences between political satire (M = 5.46, SD = 1.03) and traditional news (M
15 = 5.64, SD = 1.02), F(1, 147) = 1.20, p = .276. So people did not find traditional news
significantly more informative than political satire.
Randomization check
To check if randomization of the participants to the conditions was successful, first an ANOVA with the conditions as independent variable and age as the dependent variable was conducted. There were no differences in age among the conditions, F(3, 145) = 1.16, p = .326, η2
= .024. So randomization of age was successful. Next a χ2-test was conducted to see the effects of the conditions on gender. There were no differences on gender between the conditions, χ2(3) = .85, p = .837. So randomization of gender was also successful.
Participants
The participants were recruited through the investigator’s social network via the internet. This social network was also asked to send the survey to other people. All of the participants were Dutch. A total of 212 participants took part in the survey, of which 165 completed the survey (completion rate 77.8%). Another 16 participants had to be excluded, because they indicated that they could not see the video. So a total of 149 participants remained.
The age of the participants in this convenience sample ranged from 17 to 81 (M = 35.01, SD = 16.45). 63.1% of the participants were female and 36.9% were male. 67.8% of the participants had at least completed a bachelor degree (either HBO or WO). Most participants were interested in politics (M = 3.65, SD = .94, on a 5-point scale from 1 to 5). 30.2% watched Zondag met Lubach only sometimes, while 12.1% always watched Zondag
met Lubach and 19.5% never watched it. For watching the NOS news it is more evenly
distributed, 16.8% never watches the news, while 14.8% watches it every day. More than half of the participants had a left-wing preference, 58.4%, 10.1% was neither left nor right and 31.5% of the participants held a right-wing preference.
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Measures
Independent variable. The independent variable was determined by the experimental
condition. Participants were randomly assigned to either the political satire video from
Zondag met Lubach or the traditional news video from the NOS news. Both deal with ICT
problems in the government.
Moderator. The moderator was background information. Participants were randomly
assigned to either reading an article about ICT problems in the government before watching the video or not reading the article before watching the video. This article provided some background information about the information shown in the videos.
Mediators
Political trust. Political trust was measured using six items. Not all items were
formulated in a positive way, so some of the items had to be recoded. The participants had to agree or disagree with the items on a 7-point scale ranging from fully disagree (1) to fully agree (7). To get the variable Political trust an exploratory factor analysis has been done. Two factors were found. The first factor had an Eigenvalue of 2.97 and explained 49.42% of the variance. The second factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.00 and explained 16.68% of the variance. All of the items belonged to the first factor except the item “politicians have lost contact with society”. So the variable Political trust was formed of all the items except that one. The items can be found in table 1.This scale was also reliable, with a Cronbach’s alpha of .79 (M = 4.05,
SD = .98). Table 1
The items used to measure Political trust
Item Mean SD
Politicians usually keep their promises 3.52 1.25
Politicians are honest 3.82 1.26
Most politicians are competent people that know what they are doing
4.64 1.24
Politicians waste taxes 3.79 1.49
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Internal political efficacy. Internal political efficacy was measured using five items.
One item was formulated negatively, so that item was recoded to match the other items. The participants had to agree or disagree with the items on a 7-point scale ranging from fully disagree (1) to fully agree (7). To get the variable Internal political efficacy an exploratory factor analysis has been done. Only one factor was found, so the scale was unidimensional. The Eigenvalue of this factor was 2.86 and it explained 57.1% of the variance. The variable was formed of all the items except the item “sometimes politics seems so complicated that a person like me cannot follow it”. The scale formed of the remaining four items was reliable with a Cronbach’s alpha of .82 (M = 4.07, SD = 1.32). The items can be found in table 2.
Table 2
The items used to measure Internal political efficacy
Item Mean SD
I consider myself well qualified to participate in politics 3.85 1.80 I think that I am better informed about politics than
most people
4.07 1.69
I feel that I have a good understanding of important political issues facing our country
4.66 1.35
I feel I could do as good a job in public office as most other people
3.70 1.69
Dependent variable. The dependent variable Political participation was measured
with seven items. Participants had to say how likely it was that they would participate in a certain activity on a scale from 0 till 100%. All participation items were linked to the topic of ICT problems in the government. An exploratory factor analysis was done to get the variable Political participation. Two factors were found. The first factor had an Eigenvalue of 2.98 and explained 42.53% of the variance. The second factor had an Eigenvalue of 1.22 and explained 17.44% of the variance. The item voting in a referendum belonged to the second factor and the item talking about ICT problems with family and/or friends did not belong to any of the items. The variable Political participation was, therefore formed by the remaining five items.
18 The items can be found in table 3. This scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .72 (M = 21.98, SD = 16.72).
Table 3
The items used to measure Political participation
Item Mean SD
Attend a demonstration about ICT problems in the government
6.52 10.17
Seek contact with a politician or political party about ICT problems in the government
11.07 18.95 Sign a petition about establishing an ICT authority 39.79 32.54 React online on an article about ICT problems in the
government
16.31 23.77 Seek more information about ICT problems in the
government
36.21 29.55
Results Political Satire and Political Trust
First an ANOVA with Political satire as independent variable and Political trust as dependent variable was conducted to test the main effect of Political satire on Political trust. This effect was not significant, F(1, 147) = 0.23, p = .632. So the effect of watching Political satire (M = 4.01, SD = 1.05) and Traditional news (M = 4.09, SD = .90) on Political trust was not
significantly different. After this another ANOVA has been done, again with Political satire as independent variable and Political trust as dependent variable, but this time Background information was added to analyse the interaction effect. This effect was not significant, F(1, 145) = 0.83, p = .363.
Next an analysis via Process from Hayes (2013), Model 7 with bootstrapping set to 10.000, with Political satire as the independent variable, Political participation as the dependent variable, Political trust as the mediator and Background information as the moderator has been done. Within this analysis, the first model of Process, with predicting Political trust as the dependent variable, the interaction effect between Political satire and Background information, was not significant, F(3, 145) = 0.47, p = .701. The results can be
19 found in table 4. Political satire has a negative effect on Political trust, however this effect is not significant. So Hypothesis 1a, people who watch political satire have a lower trust in politics than people who watch traditional news, cannot be supported. Hypothesis 1b, which stated that the effect of political satire on political trust would be stronger for people without background information, can also not be supported, because the interaction effect is not significant.
Table 4
The effects of Political trust
b p Constant Political satire 4.12 -.21 .000 .340 Background information -.05 .819 Political satire × Background
information
.30 .360
The second model of the Process analysis with Political trust as the independent variable and Political participation as the dependent variable, while controlling for Political satire, was also not significant, F(2, 146) = 1.09, p = .340. The results can be found in table 5. Political trust has a negative effect on Political participation, but this effect is not significant.
Table 5
The effects of Political trust on Political participation
b p
Constant 28.50 .000
Political trust -1.83 .195
Political satire 1.74 .525
Political Satire and Internal Political Efficacy
Again first an ANOVA with Political satire as independent variable and Internal political efficacy was done to test the main effect of Political satire on Internal political efficacy. This effect was not significant, F(1, 147) = .60, p = .439. So the effect of watching Political satire (M = 4.15, SD = 1.49) and Traditional news (M = 3.99, SD = 1.12) on Internal political efficacy was not significantly different. After this another ANOVA has been done, again with
20 Political satire as independent variable and Internal political efficacy as dependent variable, but this time Background information was added to analyse if there was an interaction effect. The interaction effect was not significant, F(1, 145) = 1.94, p = .166.
To test Hypothesis 2a, 2b and 3 a second analysis via Process from Hayes (2013), Model 7 with bootstrapping set to 10.000 has been done. Political satire was the independent variable, Political participation the dependent variable, Internal political efficacy the mediator and Background information the moderator. The first model of Process, predicting Internal political efficacy as dependent variable, the interaction effect between Political satire and Background information, was not significant, F(3, 145) = .86, p = .465. The results can be found in table 6. Political satire has a positive effect on Internal political efficacy, however this effect is not significant. So Hypothesis 2a, people who watch political satire have a higher degree of internal political efficacy than people who watch traditional news, cannot be
supported. Hypothesis 2b, that the effect of political satire on Internal political efficacy will be stronger for people with background information, can also not be supported, because the interaction effect is not significant.
Table 6
The effects on Internal political efficacy
b p
Constant 3.86 .000
Political satire .45 .132
Background information .27 .379 Political satire × Background
information
-.61 .166
The second model of Process with Internal political efficacy as independent variable and Political participation as dependent variable, while controlling for Political satire, was not significant, F(2, 146) = 2.57, p = .080. The results can be found in table 7. The effect of Internal political efficacy is positive and also significant (p. < .05). So Hypothesis 3, people
21 who have a higher internal political efficacy participate more than people who have a lower internal political efficacy, can be supported.
Table 7
The effect of Internal political efficacy on Political participation
b p
Constant 12.14 .000
Internal political efficacy 2.23 .033
Political satire 1.51 .579
Political Satire and Political Participation
To test Hypothesis 4 an ANOVA with Political satire as independent variable and Political participation as dependent variable has been done. The mean of the people in the Political satire condition (M = 22.90, SD = 17.92) is slightly higher than the mean of the people in the traditional news condition (M = 21.02, SD = 15.43), but this difference was not significant,
F(1, 147) = 0.47, p = .493. So Hypothesis 4, people who watch political satire participate
more in politics than people who watch traditional news, cannot be supported. It should also be noted that for both conditions the mean to participate was not very high.
Conclusion and Discussion
This study tried to investigate if political satire had a positive effect on political participation and if this effect was more positive than the effect of traditional news on political
participation. This has been tested by comparing the effect of exposure to the Dutch political satire show Zondag met Lubach with the Dutch traditional NOS news. This study filled a gap in the literature by looking at political satire, political participation and the mediators political trust and internal political efficacy in one model. To assess causality an online experiment has been done.
It was hypothesized that the effect of political satire on political participation would be mediated by internal political efficacy and political trust. This mediated effect has not been found. There was also no significant difference between participants in the political satire condition and the traditional news condition and how likely they were to participate in
22 politics. Also insignificant was the effect of political satire on political trust, the effect of political satire on internal political efficacy and the effect of political trust on political participation. Although these effects were insignificant, the hypothesized direction of the effects were found as expected. Only the positive effect of internal political efficacy on political participation was significant, which is in line with the studies of Finkel & Muller (1998), Gastil & Xenos, 2010 and Jung, Kim and Gil de Zúñiga (2011).
This study found no significant differences between political satire and traditional news and their effects on political participation. This is not in line with previous research, as Hoffman and Young (2011), Hoffman and Thomson (2009), Lee and Kwak (2014) and Moy et al. (2005) all find positive relationships between political satire and political participation, either direct or via a mediator. But according to the results of this study, the use of humour does not necessarily mean that people will participate more.
Because the video of Zondag met Lubach was shortened to make it around the same length as the NOS, the length of the video was about half the length of the original video. In the original video much more attention was spend to explain the ICT problems in the government. So it might be that not the satire or the humour part of Zondag met Lubach has an effect on political participation, but the amount of time that is spent explaining topics and providing context. Because the length was kept constant across conditions in this experiment and the satire video was shortened, this could not be tested in this study.
In future research the hypotheses should be tested with the original video to see if the length of the video has an effect on political participation. As was mentioned before, a characteristic of political satire is that more time is spent explaining the topics. However previous studies did find differences when using videos of the same length (Baumgartner & Morris, 2006; Lee & Kwak, 2014). But it might be that their effects would be even bigger when they used a political satire video that was longer than the news item.
23 So the first limitation of this study was that the political satire video was shortened. This lowered the external validity, because the video was different than if people would have watched it if they chose to watch the clip in their daily life. It is also more artificial because when you watch Zondag met Lubach or the NOS news, you mostly watch the whole program, and in the study the participants only watched a short clip. On the other hand this had a positive effect on the internal validity of the study, because the videos were very similar; for example, regarding their length.
Another limitation was that the participants were not selected randomly, but were found through my own network. This resulted in a more left-wing, younger and also a more highly educated sample. So the sample was not representative for the whole population, therefore it is hard to generalize the results.
It would also be better if this study had more participants. This study had 149
participants. Previous research that had found effects all had more participants than this study. Baumgartner and Morris (2006) and Lee and Kwak (2014) who both also did an experiment, had both more than 700 participants. Baumgartner and Morris had around 200 participants per condition and Lee and Kwak had over 250 participants per condition, while this study had around 40 participants per condition. The studies that worked with surveys also had more participants than this study. Becker (2011) had 499 participants, Hoffman and Thomson (2009) had 201 participants and Hoffman and Young (2011) had 267 participants. So if this study had more participants, like the other studies, analyses would have more statistical power and significant effects could possibly have been found.
Another limitation was that overall the mean to participate was very low. This could have something to do with the topic of ICT. It could be that people did not like the topic of ICT and therefore also did not consider to participate in any activities regarding ICT. The topic of ICT is not a topic that is currently a hot topic in the Netherlands, in contrary to for
24 example refugees or the environment. So in further research it should be tested if the results are different for another topic. It would also have been better if it was asked beforehand how much the participants were interested in ICT, so it could have been tested if interest in ICT had an impact on the intention to participate.
In this study it was looked separately at political trust and internal political efficacy. However there is evidence from previous research that the effect of political trust on political participation relates to the internal political efficacy of a person (Hooghe & Marien, 2013). When a person beliefs he or she can make a difference, but has a low political trust, this could still result in more political participation, because that person would want to change
something. When this person does not believe that participating is effective, this will result in less participation. This relationship between political trust and internal political efficacy and their effects on political participation should also be looked at in further research.
According to this study there is no significant difference between watching political satire and traditional news on political participation. However further research should see if the length of the video does make a difference. Maybe the secret weapon of political satire is not the use of humour, but the amount of time spent explaining the context of the topics, as mentioned before. People could be drawn to political satire because of the humour, but because the topics are explained really well, they end up understanding politics which could result in more participation. When in further research these hypotheses are tested with the original length of the satire video, it is expected that internal political efficacy will be even higher, because the topic is explained in more detail. If further research proves that political satire does not have a more positive effect on political participation than the traditional news, then perhaps satire is just something to make you laugh. And this could also be true, because as said by the host of Zondag met Lubach, Arjen Lubach, the main goal of the show is not to
25 make people more knowledgeable, to persuade them or to get them more interested in politics, but to make people laugh (Collegetour, 2017).
Because of the limitations of this study and the low number of significant results it is important that more research is done, because traditional news is only one narrative in which people can learn to make rational decisions. Political satire provides a narrative in which people also learn how to criticise politics and the traditional media, which is better for
democratic discourse and deliberation (Gray, Jones & Thompson, 2008). If political satire has a significantly more positive effect on political participation than the traditional news, this has implications for the way we look at different types of media. Political satire will thus not only be a show that can make people laugh, but it can also make people, and especially young people, more interested in politics and participate more in politics. This in turn could make an end to the decreasing political participation in the current political climate.
26
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31
Appendix A The survey
Beste deelnemer,
Bedankt voor het participeren in dit onderzoek. Deze vragenlijst is onderdeel van mijn scriptie voor de Master Politieke Communicatie aan de UvA. In deze vragenlijst zullen verschillende vragen gesteld worden over politieke onderwerpen. Ook zult u worden gevraagd een video te bekijken. Zorg dus dat u het geluid aan heeft staan.
Als u meer informatie wilt over dit onderzoek, kunt u contact opnemen via het volgende e-mail adres: daniquedeprez@hote-mail.com
Door naar de volgende pagina te gaan, gaat u akkoord met de volgende punten:
- Ik participeer vrijwillig in dit onderzoek en ik heb het recht om mijn toestemming terug te trekken op elk moment.
- Ik stel vast dat ik duidelijk ben geïnformeerd over de aard van het onderzoek.
- Als mijn antwoorden gebruikt worden in publicaties of openbaar gemaakt worden, dan blijft mijn anonimiteit beschermd.
Mijn persoonlijke data zal niet doorgegeven worden aan derden zonder mijn toestemming. Bij klachten of opmerkingen over het onderzoek en de procedures, kunt u contact opnemen met een lid van de Ethische Commissie. U kunt deze persoon bereiken via het volgende adres: ASCoR Secretatiaat, Ethische Commissie, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; telefonisch via 020-5253680 of via e-mail: ascor-secr-fmg@uva.nl. Ik hoop u hiermee voldoende te hebben geïnformeerd. Hartelijk dank voor uw deelname aan dit onderzoek.
Eerst volgen een paar algemene vragen over uzelf. Wat is uw leeftijd (in jaren)?
Wat is uw geslacht? Vrouw (1) Man (2) Anders (3)
32 Wat is uw hoogst afgeronde opleiding?
Basisschool (1) VMBO/MAVO/LBO/VBO (2) HAVO (3) Atheneum/Gymnasium/VWO (4) MBO/MTS (5) HBO/HTS/HEAO (6) WO (bachelor diploma) (7) WO (master diploma) (8) Anders, namelijk: (9) ____________________
Op een schaal van 1 tot 5 hoe geïnteresseerd bent u in politiek? helemaal niet geïnteresseerd (1)
niet geïnteresseerd (2) een beetje geïnteresseerd (3) geïnteresseerd (4)
heel erg geïnteresseerd (5)
In de politiek hebben mensen het over ''links'' en ''rechts''. Op een schaal van 0 tot 10, waarbij 0 ''links'' is en 10 ''rechts'', welk cijfer beschrijft het best uw positie?
______ 1 (1)
Bent u lid van een politieke partij? Ja (1)
Nee (2)
Wat is het juiste antwoord op de volgende vragen?
Welke partijen zijn op dit moment aan het onderhandelen voor een kabinet? VVD, CDA, D66, CU (1)
VVD, PVV, CDA (2) VVD, CDA, D66, GL (3) VVD, CDA, D66 (4) Weet ik niet (5)
33 Wie is de huidige fractievoorzitter van de ChristenUnie?
Sybrand van Haersma Buma (1) Gert-Jan Segers (2)
Arie Slob (3)
Kees van der Staaij (4) Weet ik niet (5)
Wie is dit:
Co Verdaas (1)
Frans Weekers (2) Martin van Rijn (3) Martijn van Dam (4) Weet ik niet (5)
Van welk ministerie is Jetta Klijnsma de staatssecretaris? Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid (1) Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap (2) Ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie (3)
Ministerie Infrastructuur en Milieu (4) Weet ik niet (5)
Uit hoeveel zetels bestaat de Eerste Kamer? 150 (1)
100 (2) 75 (3) 50 (4)
34 Experimental condition, participanten werden random verdeeld over een van de volgende condities:
- Artikel lezen + video NOS - Video NOS
- Artikel lezen + video Zondag met Lubach - Video Zondag met Lubach
Heeft u de video goed kunnen zien? Ja (1)
Nee (2)
In hoeverre bent u het eens of oneens met de volgende stellingen?
helemaal mee oneens (1) mee oneens (2) beetje mee oneens (3) niet mee eens of oneens (4) beetje mee eens (5) mee eens (6) helemaal mee eens (7) Het fragment was grappig (1) Het fragment was serieus (2) Het fragment was informatief (3)
35 In hoeverre bent u het eens of oneens met de volgende stellingen?
helemaal mee oneens (1) mee oneens (2) beetje mee oneens (3) niet mee eens of oneens (4) beetje mee eens (5) mee eens (6) helemaal mee eens (7) Politici houden zich doorgaans aan hun beloftes (1) Politici zijn eerlijk (2) Politici hebben het contact verloren met de maatschappij (3) De meeste politici zijn competente mensen die weten wat ze doen (4) Politici verspillen belastingen (5) Politici doen te weinig voor mensen zoals ik (6)
36 helemaal mee oneens (1) mee oneens (2) beetje mee oneens (3) niet mee eens of oneens (4) beetje mee eens (5) mee eens (6) helemaal mee eens (7) Ik vind van mezelf dat ik over de juiste kwaliteiten beschik om te participeren in de politiek (1) Ik denk dat ik beter geïnformeerd ben over de politiek dan de meeste mensen (2) Ik heb het gevoel dat ik de belangrijkste politieke onderwerpen
die ons land bezig houden, goed begrijp (3) Soms lijkt de politiek zo complex dat iemand zoals ik het niet kan volgen (4) Ik denk dat ik net zo goed een politieke functie zou kunnen bekleden als de meeste andere mensen (5)
37 In hoeverre bent u het eens of oneens met de volgende stellingen?
helemaal mee oneens (1) mee oneens (2) beetje mee oneens (3) niet mee eens of oneens (4) beetje mee eens (5) mee eens (6) helemaal mee eens (7) Ik ben voor het oprichten van een tijdelijke onafhankelijke ICT autoriteit (1) Ik ben voor het oprichten van een ministerie van ICT (2)
Kunt u aangegeven hoe groot de kans is dat u de volgende activiteiten zou doen, op een schaal van 0 tot 100%?
______ Stemmen bij een referendum over het oprichten van een ICT autoriteit (1) ______ Het bijwonen van een demonstratie tegen de ICT problemen bij de overheid (2) ______ Contact opnemen met een politicus of politieke partij over de ICT problemen bij de overheid (3)
______ Een petitie tekenen voor het oprichten van een ICT autoriteit (4)
______ Praten over ICT problemen bij de overheid met familie en/of vrienden (5) ______ Online reageren op een artikel over ICT problemen bij de overheid (6) ______ Meer informatie opzoeken over ICT problemen bij de overheid (7)
Hoe vaak kijkt u het televisieprogramma Zondag met Lubach? nooit (1) zelden (2) soms (3) vaak (4) bijna altijd (5) altijd (6)
38 Hoeveel dagen per week kijkt u het NOS journaal?
0 dagen (1) 1 dag (2) 2 dagen (3) 3 dagen (4) 4 dagen (5) 5 dagen (6) 6 dagen (7) 7 dagen (8)
U bent klaar met de vragenlijst. Heeft u nog opmerkingen of vragen over dit onderzoek vul deze dan hieronder in.
Bedankt voor het deelnemen aan dit onderzoek! Dit onderzoek ging over de verschillen tussen politieke satire en traditioneel nieuws en de effecten hiervan op politieke participatie. Wilt u meer informatie over dit onderzoek, dan kunt u contact opnemen via het e-mailadres
39
