Laugh yourself to college
The effect of humor on political knowledge through educational entertainment
television programming
Tijn Kremers
10802312 Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication
Master’s Programme Communication Science I. Rodríguez de Dios
Abstract
This study investigated the relationship between exposure to humor, enjoyment and political knowledge. Where past studies mainly focused on purely comedy shows, this study tends to examine this relationship with educational entertainment television shows. Additionally, the present study looked at possible differences between gender, in terms of the relationship between exposure to humor and enjoyment. An online experiment was conducted among 154 Dutch young adults to test their political knowledge after watching a video of the Dutch television show Zondag met Lubach. The participants were randomly assigned in a condition where the video contained humor or in a condition where the humor was edited out of the video. The results of the experiment suggest that perceived humor and enjoyment play a role as predictors for political knowledge, as increased perceived humor and increased enjoyment results in a higher political knowledge. In addition to this finding, the relationship between exposure to humor and
enjoyment was not influenced by gender. Future research should be done to determine the reliability of these findings and to test for additional levels of education or different cultures.
Laugh yourself to college: The effect of humor on political knowledge through educational entertainment television programming.
Since the arrival of television as a mass medium, its entertaining and informing function played a central part in the production of television shows. Nowadays, to attract attention and keep the audience’s focus, television shows tend to be more focused around fast pacing and the inclusion of humor to keep the show entertaining and to enjoy the audience. Television shows that are purely based on entertainment grow and even informative talk shows often use humorous videos to keep the audience entertained. Although entertainment has taken a central role in the production of television shows, television also has the ability to educate its audience and increase one’s knowledge (Singhal & Rogers, 1989).
Although these abilities are clear, the boundary of what is considered entertainment and what is news, or educational television, is disappearing (Williams & Carpini, 2020). In his article in The New York Times, Rich states that young viewers often replace informative news sources with “Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and other comic venues that not infrequently have more insight and command of the facts than, say, the Ken and Barbie dolls lately recruited as news
‘personalities’ to stem the hemorrhaging at CNN” (Rich, 2002). Although Rich interprets this shift in news sources as a negative change, it does open doors for new ways of education through television, by combining entertainment television and educational television. It is therefore important to examine whether the humorous or comedic tone and style of entertainment television shows can actually be applied for a positive cause; as a tool to educate the audience.
An important concept when addressing educational television is knowledge, and in particular, when it comes to television talk shows, political knowledge. Political knowledge can
be defined as the factual knowledge that one gains from watching a television show (Baum, 2003; Hollander, 2005). These television shows however often use a more entertainment approach than an educational one. Using humor and entertaining the audience seems to be of higher priority than educating them (Cao, 2008). This study therefore tries to shed a light on the effect of humor in an, as well entertaining as educational, television program on the gained political knowledge.
Furthermore, the use of humor in these entertainment television talk shows often influences the audience's enjoyment of the show. As enjoyment is believed to function as a predictor for political knowledge (Nash & Hoffman, 2016), the role of enjoyment can not be neglected when discussing the relationship between humor and political knowledge. Therefore, this study also tries to explore the role of enjoyment in this relationship.
As mentioned, multiple studies has been done on the relationship between humor in entertainment television shows and political knowledge (e.g. Cao, 2008; Hollander, 2005; Prior, 2003), but only little research included television shows with educational messages (Futerfas & Nan, 2017; Moyer-Gusé, Mahood & Brooks, 2011). Combining these approaches, the present study tries to examine the effect of humor on political knowledge for television shows who purposefully want to educate their audience, in addition to an entertainment approach. The present study therefore contributes to the already existing literature on the relationship between humor and political knowledge and additionally explores potential new approaches to educate an audience through educational entertainment television shows. In doing so, this study will be based upon and tries to answer the following research question:
RQ: What is the effect of humor on political knowledge that is gained for young adults through educational entertainment media?
Theoretical Framework Learning from Television
Since television began playing an ubiquitous role in everyday life, its educational
function has been a central point of discussion in television research. Where television is mainly a medium for entertainment purposes, it is often believed that television can function as more than only entertainment. As Seels, Fullerton, Berry and Horn (2004) describe: “television has the capability to educate, stimulate, persuade, and inform” (p. 315). An important feature of
television that is related to its educational power is visuality. The visuality that television offers, improved viewer’s recall of television news stories (Graber, 1990), whereas earlier news
broadcasters did not offer visuals.
Learning from television is also studied in the Social Learning Theory, which shows that audiences of television tend to learn by imitating the information provided on television
(Bandura & Walters, 1963). Although the Social Learning Theory is mainly based around imitating behavior from television, it does indicate that television is a powerful medium in terms of learning and education. Furthermore, television can be used in an assisting manner to help children to read (Seels et al., 2004), and, especially if children use a program that was produced especially for them, they are cognitively active while learning (Anderson, 1988).
Conclusively, these studies indicate that television has a much broader function than only entertainment and that it offers possibilities in educational settings as well as being educational as a medium itself.
Humor and knowledge
The role of humor and its relationship with memory is studied often, especially in the field of research of marketing. The focus of these studies tends to be on brand recall and claim recall. The outcomes regarding these relationships are very contradicting. First, a positive relationship between humor and brand/claim recall has been found (Chung & Zhao, 2011; Cline & Kellaris, 2007a; Cline & Kellaris, 2007b; Hansen et al., 2009; Kendro & Narhetali, 2017). This positive relationship means that the use of humor in an advertisement led to a better memory concerning the claims. On how this relationship works in practice, Chung and Zhao (2011) say the following: “If consumers like the advertising, they are more likely to notice and to pay attention to the ads and more likely to assimilate and respond to the advertising message” (p. 92). By using humor, the consumers’ attention is drawn (Eisend, 2008), which leads to better response and recalling towards the brand. These results indicate the foundation of the
relationship between the use of humor and knowledge, as the relationship between humor and memory can also be applicable for humor and knowledge in television shows instead of advertisements.
In contrast, multiple studies found contradicting results, suggesting that humor has a positive effect on brand recall but a negative one on relevant messages provided by the
They explain this by stating that humor draws attention towards the advertisement but distracts the consumer from the non-humorous part of the message (Hansen et al., 2009; Kendro & Narhetali, 2017). This is called the vampire-effect (Eisend, 2018), and it shows that although humor has the power to draw attention, it can easily lead to distraction from important messages if humor is not used properly (i.e. relevant to the message). Strick et al. (2009) even argue that humor is only distracting and that it has a negative effect on both brand recall, claims and non-humorous messages, especially if the humor is not relevant. Contradicting the positive relationship between humor and memory, these findings indicate the inconsistency in this relationship and therefore as well in applying these findings to humor and knowledge in television shows.
As the studies in the field of research of marketing focus on the relationship between humor that is provided in visual and audible advertisements and the memory of these messages and brands, the same trend of memorizing visual and audible messages can be applied to television shows. If what you see and hear can be memorized from advertisements, this same mechanism should make you able to remember what you see and hear from television shows. The studies on advertisement did not provide a clear direction of the relationship between humor and memory, so it is important to keep this unclarity in mind when addressing the relationship in television shows.
In addition to past research in the field of marketing, some studies have been done on the role of humor in relation to television shows. More particularly, educational entertainment television shows. In line with the research in the field of marketing, which showed contradicting results concerning the role humor plays on recall and memory, the studies specified to
educational entertainment media show the same inconsistency. On the one hand, Moyer-Gusé, Mahood and Brook (2011) found that the use of related humor messages reduced counterarguing, which may reduce the effect of the message provided by the educational entertainment program. On the other hand, the use of humor in an entertainment television program resulted in increased knowledge about the addressed topic (Futerfas & Nan, 2017). Although their research did not concern a television program whose intention it was to educate their audience, as they examined a soap series, the educational information that was provided already functioned as influential on participants’ gained knowledge. Additionally, they found that the use of humor led to greater attention and focus to the message. At last, Nabi, Moyer-Gusé and Byrne (2007) found support for both findings as their results suggested that the use of humor led to more attention when it comes to message processing but at the same time for less counterarguing, leading to a less critical attitude towards the message. Consistent with research from the field of marketing, studies involving educational entertainment television show the same contradicting results regarding the role of humor. Past research in educational entertainment television shows
provides a more general look at humor and television and does not explicitly measure knowledge or memory. Therefore, a more specific relationship between (political) knowledge and television shows should be discussed.
Political Knowledge
Whereas earlier research showed a more general view on the relationship between humor and knowledge, political knowledge is widely used as a specific measure of gained knowledge from a television show (e.g. Baum, 2003; Cao, 2008; Hollander, 2005). A high sense of political
knowledge contributes to informed citizenry, which is argued to be the foundation of democracy (Carpini & Keeter, 1996). Political knowledge that is provided through television is mostly distributed by political comedy shows or political satire news programs. These ‘soft news’ programs are a combination of educational programming and entertainment and can affect the public opinion (Cao, 2008). In these ‘soft news’ shows, the use of humor plays a central role in entertaining the audience. Because political ‘soft news’ programs mainly focus on political issues, while other late night shows have a more general agenda, they have an even “greater potential to educate audience members than other programs that include political satire (e.g., late-night entertainment talk shows)” (Cao, 2008 p. 45).
Since this great educational potential, lots of studies have been done on the relationship between the use of humor in these programs and actual political knowledge. Likewise to the field of research of marketing, the outcomes of these studies differ significantly. Most of the studies that researched exposure to humor in ‘soft news’ programs and gained political knowledge did not find an effect (Baum, 2003; Hollander, 1995; Parkin et al., 2002 ; Prior, 2003). Although Baum (2003) did not find a relationship concerning political knowledge, he argues that exposure to ‘soft news’ does facilitate some sense of learning, in a way of “providing heuristic cues that help people to make reasoned political judgments, without significantly increasing the volume of factual political knowledge” (p. 174). In addition to this finding, Baum (2003) mentions that memory of factual knowledge is just one form of learning, as there are different types, meaning that ‘soft news’ do not necessarily improve political knowledge but that does not mean that any form of learning is not influenced.
In contrast to the earlier mentioned work, some studies have found a relationship between humor and political knowledge, or at least partly. For instance, Hollander (2005) argues that “watching such programs (i.e. ‘soft news’) is more likely to be associated with recognition of campaign information than it is with recall of actual information” (p. 411). This recall of actual information that Hollander speaks of can be explained as actual knowledge that is gained from watching a television show.
Where the studies of Hollander (2005) and Baum (2003) established a partly relationship, with the actual political knowledge as an uninfluenced variable, Cao’s (2008) findings indicate a more stable relationship between the humor and political knowledge; “exposure to political comedy shows was positively associated with campaign knowledge” (p. 58). This relationship was not a direct relationship which can be generalized because there were two boundary conditions, namely that the relationship was only present among young people and with higher education (Cao, 2008), but it does show that political ‘soft news’ programs can inform their audience.
It is clear that in this field of research, multiple studies have found a positive relationship between political knowledge and the use of humor in entertainment and somewhat educational television programming. However, with different studies contradicting these findings, a clear conclusion can not be drawn on the role of humor and political knowledge. All research on political knowledge is based upon television programs which focus specifically on providing political content in a humorous manner. The topics of the shows concern political issues and political issues only, in comparison to other late night entertainment talk shows (Cao, 2008).
10 Where entertainment plays a predominant role, providing the audience with information is not directly attempted (Cao, 2008).
The present study sheds light on a matter that earlier work did not cover, namely shifting the focus of research from only political intended entertainment programming to a show (Zondag met Lubach) which is less focused on solely political topics and acts more with intention to educate the audience. This intention of informing the audience is still carried out through
entertainment and the use of humor but the intention is not necessarily to only entertain. Whereas Baum (2003) mentioned that actual knowledge is only one specific aspect of learning as a whole, it is still the most important aspect when approaching knowledge from an educational standpoint. If the goal of a program is to educate the audience, gaining knowledge is the main objective and therefore of crucial importance in the present study.
The findings of Cao (2008) showed that the use of humor had an effect on political knowledge of younger people, even if the studied programs are not intentionally willing to educate the audience. Therefore, the present study builds upon this finding as it will examine this relationship, for young adults, with a tv show that has more educational intentions instead of only political, where the assumption is that it will show a comparable effect.
The present study looks at the relationship between entertainment (i.e. humor) and knowledge concerning a television program with educational intentions instead of purely entertainment (Futerfas & Nan, 2017) or political comedy shows (Baum, 2003; Cao, 2008; Hollander, 2005). Based upon these studies, the research regarding political knowledge and ‘soft news’ and earlier work in the field of marketing, the following hypothesis is drawn:
11 H1: Exposure to humorous content, compared to non-humorous content, has a positive effect on gaining political knowledge.
The mediating role of enjoyment
Enjoyment can be described as a distinct form of entertainment experiences (Oliver & Bartsch, 2010). It can function as a motivation for using media and has the ability to influence the experience of media and its effects (Nabi & Krcmar, 2004). Enjoyment appears in different forms, as one can enjoy a sad book or a horror movie, but the form in which enjoyment is spoken of regularly, humor plays a central role. Enjoyment is often associated with positive emotional terms as liking, pleasure, joy, delight (Eden, 2017) and humor. Humor tends to stimulate these emotions and is therefore often used for predicting enjoyment (Bensen & Perry, 2006; Perry, Jenzowsky, Hester, King & Yi, 1997). In line with these findings, the present study builds upon this assumption in clarifying the relationship between humor and political knowledge.
Not only can media experiences and effects be influenced by enjoyment, it can also influence knowledge that is gained from content. Whether audiences gain (political) knowledge depends on the level of enjoyment one has with the content (Nash & Hoffman, 2016). If the audience does not enjoy the activity (e.g. watching television or reading in an app), lesser knowledge is gained from these media than if they do enjoy. Not only did enjoyment influence political knowledge, it served as a predictor for political knowledge (Nash & Hoffman, 2016). A study by Schneider, Weinmann, Roth, Knop and Vorderer (2015) showed that enjoyment was positively related to both objective knowledge as subjective knowledge (i.e. the feeling of being
12 informed) and seemed to increase the knowledge. Based on this earlier work and the relationship between humor and enjoyment, the following hypotheses are tested:
H2: Exposure to humorous content, compared to exposure to non-humorous content, has a positive effect on the enjoyment of this content.
H3: Enjoyment has a positive effect on political knowledge.
H4: Enjoyment functions as a mediator in the relationship between exposure to humorous content and political knowledge.
Gender as a moderator
There are many different types of humor (e.g. jokes, aggressive humor, absurdist humor, sexist humor etc.), to which men and women are engaged differently (Speer, 2017). “Men engage more in self-aggrandizement and put-down humor, whereas women engage more in self-deprecating humor to create rapport and intimacy” (Jenkins, 1985 in Speer, 2017, p. 8). These different preferences of humor and the fact that what is considered funny differs per gender (in general) makes it likely that the perception of the humor that is used in the educational entertainment program is different for men and women. The perception of what is humorous influences the way enjoyment is developed, which on its turn, as discussed above, has a relationship with knowledge that is gained. As Moyer-Gusé, Mahood and Brook (2011) show, when exposed to humorous sexual content, men tend to engage more in sexual activities afterwards while it did not have an effect on women at all. Also, when considering violent humor, men tend to engage more than women (Swani, Weinberger & Gulas, 2013). Women tend
13 to prefer sarcastic humor if it is made by other women directed towards men, and men enjoy sarcasm regardless of the gender of the person who provides the humor (Drucker, Giroa, Fein, and Bergerbest, 2014). Since the host of Zondag met Lubach is a man and uses sarcastic humor, the following hypothesis is formulated:
H5: The positive relationship between exposure to humor and enjoyment is stronger for men than for women.
To provide a clearer picture of the hypothesis, the following model is built:
Figure 1. The hypothesized model
Methodology Participants
165 Dutch participants were recruited by a convenience sampling method through social media platforms as Facebook and Instagram and further recruitment was completed by snowball sampling. Since this study focuses on young adults, only the participants between the age of 18
14 and 35 were used in the analysis, reducing the number of participants to N= 154. The
participants were on average 24,8 years old (SD = 2.92). 58,4% of these were female and 96,1 percent were identified as highly educated (HBO or higher education). The participants did not receive any rewards for their contribution to the study.
Research design and procedure
An online experiment was conducted using a 2x2 research design with exposure to humor (Yes/No) as an experimental factor and gender (Male/Female) as a quasi experimental factor. By participating in the online experiment, participants were asked to watch a video of Zondag met Lubach and were automatically placed in either the manipulated or control condition. After watching the video, the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire. The questions in the questionnaire were related to the content of the video and participants’ enjoyment of watching the video. Finally, after completing the questionnaire, the participants were thanked for their participation.
Stimulus material
For the online experiment, participants were shown a video of a Dutch educational entertainment television show, Zondag met Lubach. The video concerned a discussion and explanation about the Italian political system. For instance, it discussed who was a member of the government, why Italy was in the news concerning their arguments with the European Union and reactions on critics from the Italian press. The manipulation condition was shown the
15 Zondag met Lubach, with all the humorous parts (i.e. all the jokes) edited out, leaving the show as a provider of information about the Italian politics. Besides from the jokes being cut out, the content and provided information of both videos was identical. The video in the manipulation condition had a duration around 6 minutes, while the video in the control condition took around 4 minutes to finish.
Measurements
Political Knowledge. 12 multiple choice questions were created to measure Political Knowledge. The items tested the knowledge about the provided information in the video (e.g. “The Italian government consists of which two parties?”, “What was the explanation of Pandora about their video?”, “What is the name of the founder of the 5-star movement?”). All correct answers were rewarded with a point, while for incorrect answers no points were awarded. The scores of the 12 items were summed to create a total score on Political Knowledge, with a minimum score of 0 points and a maximum score of 15 points (M = 12.53, SD = 1.82), as for 2 questions, multiple answers were correct and therefore rewarded with multiple points per question. As is often the case (Mondak & Anderson, 2004; Yamamoto, Kushin & Dalisay, 2018), the items measuring political knowledge had low internal consistency (α = .41). This might be explained due to the questioning style, with very specific answer questions and questions that were based on the information that was provided in the video. As expected, the data revealed low inter-item correlations, with the higher correlation at .384 between the eighth and twelfth question.
16
Enjoyment. To measure Enjoyment, three items from Oliver and Bartsch (2010) from the original twelve item scale were used. These three items loaded high on factors related to enjoyment, whereas the other nine items from the original scale loaded high on other unrelated factors. Participants were asked to what extent they agreed to the statements (“It was fun for me to watch this video”, “I had a good time watching this video”, “The video was entertaining”) on a 7-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree. M = 5.67, SD = 1). A principal components factor analysis confirmed that these six items loaded on one factor (one eigenvalue >1 accounting for 85 % of the variance), with a Crohnbach’s Alpha of .91.
Control variables. To determine sociodemographic variables as gender and age, participants were asked to specify their gender (male, female, other or I don’t want to say) and their age (0-99). Furthermore, participants were asked to indicate their level of education (Primary school, Highschool, MBO, HBO/University Bachelor, Masters, PhD). Finally, familiarity with Zondag met Lubach was tested by asking the participants if they had seen Zondag met Lubach before (97% yes).
Results Manipulation check
Zondag met Lubach was used as a stimulus program where the manipulated condition was shown an original video, with the humorous parts still included, and the control condition the same video but with all the humor (i.e. jokes) edited out. The goal of the manipulation was that the video in the manipulation condition was seen as humorous and the video in the control condition as non-humorous. Since perceiving humorous content as actually humorous is
17 subjective, it is possible that participants who were assigned to the non-humorous condition still perceived the stimuli as humorous. Therefore, the statement “I found this video to be humorous” (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree. M = 5.77, SD = .96) was proposed to determine the level of perceived humor. To confirm this manipulation, an independent samples t-test was executed, where both conditions were compared in terms of participants’ rating of how
humorous they perceived the video, which was measured on a 1-7 likert scale. As expected, the control condition, with the humor edited out, rated the video less humorous (M = 5.58, SD = .97) than the manipulation condition (M = 5.97, SD = .91). This difference, .40, 95% CI [0.10, 0.70], was statistically significant, t(152) = 2.63, p = .01; however it represented an effect of d = .01, which is a small to very small effect. The results indicate that the expected manipulation was successful.
Randomization check
Preliminary analyses showed that the experimental group and the control group did not statistically significantly differ in age, t(152) = .01, p = .995, and level of education, t(152) = 1.58, p = .117. Nor did the groups differ in terms of gender, X² (1, N = 154) = 0.81, p = .368. Chi-square test did show significant results for distribution of previous exposure, X² (1, N = 154) = 4.44, p = .035. However, only 4 out of 154 participants had not seen the show before, which makes this a very small influence. Previous exposure did not correlate with perceived humor significantly, r = -.003, p = .973, indicating that if someone saw Zondag met Lubach before, it did not influence their perception of the video. However, previous exposure will be included as
18 a covariate. At last, the participants were equally distributed among the different groups, as is shown in table 1.
Table 1
Distribution of the Participants for Both Conditions.
Manipulation Condition (N=74) Control Condition (N=80)
Age M (SD) 24.8 (2.81) 24.8 (3.04)
Gender (Females) % (N) 62 (46) 56 (45)
Education (High) % (N) 93 (69) 99 (79)
The effect of humor on political knowledge
H1 stated that exposure to humorous content, compared to non-humorous content, would have a positive effect on gaining political knowledge. A simple linear regression was calculated to predict political knowledge based on humorous condition, controlling for level of education, age, gender and previous exposure to Zondag met Lubach. No significant regression equation was found F(5,148 = 2.09, p= .07), with an R² of .066. Humor condition did not significantly predicted political knowledge, b* = -.02, t(153) = -.24, p = .81, 95% CI [-.66,.51]. Thus, no evidence was found that supported H1.
19 Where the study of this relationship was driven by the two conditions, the data suggest that perceived humor is a more accurate predictor of political knowledge. This led me to believe that although the manipulation was successful, as there was a significant difference in the level of humor of both conditions, the used videos were not optimally suited to measure the intended relationship between conditions and political knowledge. To test the suggestion that perceived humor functions as a more accurate predictor of political knowledge, a simple linear regression was calculated to predict political knowledge based on perceived humor, controlling for level of education, age, gender and previous exposure to Zondag met Lubach. A significant regression equation was found F(5,148)= 3.19, p= .009, with an R² of .097, meaning that 9,7 % of the variance of political knowledge can be explained by the model. Perceived humor significantly predicted political knowledge, b* = .18, t(153) = 2.29, p = .024, 95% CI [.05,.64]. Meaning that if a participant perceived the content of the video as 1 unit more humorous, it increases its political knowledge score by .34 points, all other conditions held equal. Although H1 was not supported, this finding is of great importance concerning this study.
The role of enjoyment
H2 stated that exposure to humorous content, compared to exposure to non-humorous content, had a positive effect on the enjoyment of this content. A simple linear regression was calculated to predict enjoyment based on exposure to humorous content, controlling for level of education, age, gender and previous exposure to Zondag met Lubach. No significant regression equation was found F(5,148)= 2.18, p= .059, with an R² of .069. Exposure to the humorous condition significantly predicted enjoyment, b* = .17, t(153) = 2.14, p = .034, 95% CI [.03,.67].
20 If a participant was exposed to the humorous condition, he or she tends to enjoy the video by .348 point more, all other conditions held equal. Thus, H2 is supported.
H3 stated that enjoyment had a positive effect on political knowledge. To test H3, a simple regression was calculated to predict political knowledge based on enjoyment, controlling for level of education, age, gender and previous exposure to Zondag met Lubach. A significant regression equation was found F(5,148)= 2.92, p = .015, with an R² of .09, meaning that 9 % of the variance of political knowledge can be explained by the model. Enjoyment significantly predicted political knowledge, b* = .16, t(153) = 2, p = .048, 95% CI [.00,.58]. If a participant enjoyed the content of the video as 1 unit more, it increases its political knowledge score by .29 points, all other conditions held equal. The results of the test show that H3 is supported.
H4 stated that enjoyment functioned as a mediator in the relationship between exposure to humorous content and political knowledge. To determine the role of enjoyment as a mediator , first, the relationship between exposure to humorous content and political knowledge needs to be examined. As the results for testing H1 indicated, exposure to humorous content did not
significantly predict political knowledge. Traditionally, the presence of a direct effect was a requirement to establish a mediator effect. However, some authors nowadays argue that there can be a mediator effect without a direct effect and that no further examination of the mediator effect based on the absence of a direct effect can lead to misleading conclusions (Rucker, Preacher, Tormala & Petty, 2011). Since both the relationship between exposure to humorous content and enjoyment (H2) as the relationship between enjoyment and political knowledge (H3) showed significant results, the role of enjoyment as a mediator should be examined.
21 As H2 showed, the relationship between exposure to humor and enjoyment was
significant. To test the role as mediator for enjoyment, a multiple regression was calculated to predict political knowledge based on both exposure to humor and enjoyment, controlling for level of education, age, gender and previous exposure to Zondag met Lubach. A significant regression equation was found F(6,147)= 2.49, p = .026, with an R² of .092, meaning that 9,2 % of the variance in political knowledge could be explained by the model. Enjoyment significantly predicted political knowledge, b* = .17, t(153) = 2.06, p = .041, 95% CI [.01,.60]. If a
participant enjoyed the content of the video as 1 unit more, it increases its political knowledge score by .31 points, all other conditions held equal. Exposure to humor did not significantly predict political knowledge, b* = -.05, t(153) = -.6, p = .55, 95% CI [-.77,.41]. To determine if enjoyment functioned as a mediator in the relationship between exposure to humor and political knowledge, Sobel’s test was executed. The results of Sobel’s test were not significant, p = .138, meaning that enjoyment did not function as a mediator in the relationship between exposure to humor and political knowledge, only as a predictor for political knowledge (H3). Thus, H4 was not supported.
Gender as a moderator
H5 stated that the positive relationship between exposure to humor and enjoyment was stronger for men than for women. A two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted that examined the effect of gender and exposure to humorous content on enjoyment. Results showed that there was no statistically significant interaction between the effects of gender and
22 exposure to humorous content on enjoyment, F (1, 150) = .074, p = .79. Therefore, no evidence was found to support H5.
An overview of all results, including the direction of the relationships and significance levels is provided in the following model:
Figure 2. The hypothesized model including significance levels and direction (the solid lines indicate a significant relationship and the dashed lines non significant ones)
Discussion
The study on the role of humor in relation with political knowledge has been in the center of focus for a growing field of research. Earlier research however did not focus on television programming with an educational purpose (Baum, 2003; Cao, 2008; Hollander, 2005).
Moreover, the existing field of research showed contradicting and inconsistent findings regarding the role of humor in predicting political knowledge. The present study therefore explores this relationship with television programming with an educational purpose.
The primary purpose for this study was to investigate the effect of humor on political knowledge for Dutch young adults that is gained through educational entertainment media. In
23 doing so, the results of this study suggest that watching a video with humorous content, in
comparison with a video without humorous content, did not have an effect on political knowledge that was gained from the video, which is in line with earlier research (e.g. Braum, 2003; Hollander, 2005). Although the two different conditions did not show any different outcomes, it does not mean that humor does not play a role in predicting political knowledge. The results namely suggest that although the humorous or non humorous video was not effective, participants’ self-reported perceived humor of the video had a positive effect in predicting their political knowledge. This finding implies that when someone watches a video and believes that it is humorous, one’s memory of the information that is provided (i.e. political knowledge) is better than if someone does not perceive the video as humorous. The use of humor in an educational entertainment television program therefore can possibly be of importance in increasing one’s knowledge that is gained from watching it.
In addition to perceiving information to be humorous, the results also suggest that
perceived humor is not the only predictor for political knowledge. In line with earlier work (Nash & Hoffman, 2009), the present results suggest a significant relationship between enjoyment and political knowledge, with enjoyment acting as a predictor for political knowledge. Additionally, the results suggested that watching a video with humorous content, in comparison with a video without humorous content, did have a positive effect on the level of enjoyment (H2). These results are important for its implications as it may show that viewers retain political information better because they enjoy the way it is provided to them and that the use of humor stimulates this enjoyment. These findings suggest that if television shows want the audience to remember the
24 content of their show or inform them, providing entertaining content that people enjoy can be an effective way to accomplish this ambition.
Contrary to earlier work on the effect of humor on enjoyment concerning different
genders (Moyer-Gusé et al., 2011), the results did not suggest a difference for this relationship. A possible explanation could be that the humor that is used in Zondag met Lubach is provided in a form which is attractive for both men and women, whereas in earlier work the humor was more specific to sexual behavior, which could explain the difference in perception per gender.
Concerning educational entertainment programming, or educational television as a whole, the findings may also be of great importance when developing new educational
television. Where children’s television (e.g. Sesame Street) already often includes humor as an important component of their shows, this study suggests that if the inclusion of humor is perceived as humorous in educational programming, it also positively affects the knowledge of young adults. Developers of educational television shows, therefore, have to be cautious not to neglect the important role of humor when it comes to remembering information and expanding one’s knowledge, for both children and (young) adults.
Finally, the present study contributes to the existing literature by adding new empirical findings on a positive relationship between perceived humor, enjoyment and political
knowledge. In this field of research with multiple contradicting outcomes, the recent findings suggest an important role for enjoyment, which was less prominent in earlier studies, and also provides a different perspective, by using educational entertainment television instead of purely entertainment.
25
Limitations
Like all studies, this study has its limitations. First of all, although the results of the manipulation check showed a significant effect, this effect was very small. This led me to believe that a clear enough distinction between the two videos in the non-humorous and the humorous conditions was not realized. A possible explanation can be that although the jokes were removed by editing in the non-humorous condition, the participants of this condition still perceived the video as humorous, or for instance the tone of the video as humorous. Additionally, almost all of the participants (97%) indicated that they had seen Zondag met Lubach before. This possibly unimpaired the effect of the adaption of the video, leading to not having the desirable
contradicting conditions to test the effect of humor.
Secondly, from the participants in this study, 96,1% indicated to be highly educated. In order to be able to draw a well founded conclusion on the effect of humor on political knowledge in general, it is desirable to have a more diverse sample in terms of education level. As the relationship between humor and political knowledge could differ for different levels of education, the lack of it can be indicated as a limitation of this study.
Future research
Now that the present study has indicated a relationship between enjoyment, perceived humor and political knowledge, a number of follow up themes for future research arise.
First, this study tried to start a new focus on educational purposes of television
programming, whereas earlier work tends to focus more on political comedy shows, without any educational intentions (Baum, 2003; Cao, 2008; Hollander, 2005). While this study did shift the
26 focus from political comedy shows to more educational entertainment television programs, the main topic that was discussed in this program was still centered on political issues. Future research should explore the effects of educational entertainment television programming in more broader topics than only political knowledge, to find more evidence for the relationship between humor and knowledge in general, instead of only political. This extension of this relationship could be even more useful and valuable for, for instance, schools and educational programming as humor could grow to be a very important tool in education.
Also, where in this study most of the participants were highly educated, this study leaves a gap for future research with a more diverse sample in terms of education level. By doing so, a more accurate and general conclusion can be drawn in terms of using humor as a tool for
education. Perhaps, with the participants in this study being highly educated, their prior political knowledge about the topic was already higher than someone with lower political knowledge. According to Galston (2001), a lower level of political knowledge makes it difficult to “integrate new information into an existing framework” (p. 223), which could affect the relationship
between humor, enjoyment and political knowledge, if a participant has less political knowledge. Therefore, it could be interesting to see how this relationship potentially differs among
educational levels. As lower education does not automatically mean that the participant has a lower political knowledge, future research could also include a pre-test concerning political knowledge.
Last, although this study did not test for participants’ nationality or origin, since all the participants were Dutch, it is possible that other subcultures have different relationships concerning humor, enjoyment and knowledge. As humor can be perceived differently by
27 different individual people (Speer, 2017), it is imaginable that what is seen as humorous and enjoyable also could differ between cultures. Consequently, more research is needed, in addition to the present field of research, to explore the relationship between humor, enjoyment and political knowledge even better, to be able to draw more generalizable conclusions on how this relationship functions.
Conclusion
In summary, the results of this study show important insights about the role of humor and enjoyment on political knowledge. Both acted as a predictor for political knowledge, although for humor this was only the case regarding self-reported perceived humor. The results show that humor and enjoyment could be important components when developing educational
entertainment television shows as they could improve one’s political knowledge. Therefore, this study contributes to the existing literature as it provides additional insights to a contrary field of research on the role of humor, enjoyment and political knowledge. For future research,
hopefully, this relationship will be examined among different levels of education to obtain more insights in how this relationship could differ between educational levels. Additionally, cultural differences could play a role in the relationship between humor, enjoyment and political
knowledge. In doing so, additional components will be investigated to establish a more in depth discussion on the relationship between humor and (political) knowledge.
28
References
Anderson, D. R. (1988). The impact on children's education: Television's influence on cognitive development (No. 2). Office of Educational Research and Improvement, US Department of Education.
Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1963). Social learning and personality development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston
Baum, M. A. (2003). Soft news and political knowledge: Evidence of absence or absence of evidence? Political Communication, 20, 173–190.
Benson, A., & Perry, S. D. (2006). The influence of humor in radio advertising on program enjoyment and future intent to listen. Journal of Radio Studies, 13(2), 169-186. Cao, X. (2008). Political comedy shows and knowledge about primary campaigns: The
moderating effects of age and education. Mass Communication & Society, 11(1), 43-61.
Carpini, M. X. D., & Keeter, S. (1996). What Americans know about politics and why it matters. Yale University Press.
Chung, H., & Zhao, X. (2011). The Effects of Humor on Ad Processing: Mediating Role of Brand Familiarity. Journal of Promotion Management, 17(1), 76–95. doi:
29 Cline, T. W., & Kellaris, J. J. (2007a). Humor and ad memorability: On the contributions of
humor expectancy, relevancy, and need for humor. Psychology and Marketing, 24(6), 497–509. doi: 10.1002/mar.20170
Cline, T. W., & Kellaris, J. J. (2007b). The Influence of Humor Strength and
Humor—Message Relatedness on Ad Memorability: A Dual Process Model. Journal of Advertising, 36(1), 55–67. doi: 10.2753/joa0091-3367360104
Drucker, A. Giora, R. Fein, O. Bergerbest, D. (2014). On sarcasm, social awareness, and gender. International Journal of Humor Research, 27(4).
Eden, A. (2017). Entertainment effects: enjoyment. The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects, 1-13.
Eisend, M. (2008). A meta-analysis of humor in advertising. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 37(2), 191–203. doi: 10.1007/s11747-008-0096-y
Eisend, M. (2018). Explaining the use and effects of humour in advertising: an
evolutionary perspective. International Journal of Advertising, 37(4), 526-547. Doi: 10.1080/02650487.2017.1335074
Futerfas, M. L. & Nan, X. (2017). Role of Humor in the Persuasiveness of Entertainment Narratives on Unprotected Sexual Behavior. Journal of Health Communication, 22(4), 312-318, DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2017.1284285
Galston, W. A. (2001). Political knowledge, political engagement, and civic education. Annual review of political science, 4(1), 217-234.
30 Graber, D. A. (1990). Seeing is remembering: How visuals contribute to learning from
television news. Journal of communication, 40(3), 134-155.
Hansen, J., Strick, M., Baaren, R. B. V., Hooghuis, M., & Wigboldus, D. H. J. (2009). Exploring memory for product names advertised with humour. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 8(2-3), 135–148. doi: 10.1002/cb.278
Hollander, B. A. (2005). Late-night learning: Do entertainment programs increase political campaign knowledge for young viewers?. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 49(4), 402-415.
Hollander, B. A. (1995). The new news and the 1992 presidential campaign: Perceived versus actual campaign knowledge. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 72, 786– 798.
Jenkins, M. M. (1985) ‘What’s so funny? Joking among women’, in N. Caskey, S. Bremner, and B. Moonwomon (eds.) Proceedings of the First Berkeley Women and Language Conference (131-151). Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Women and Language Group, University of California.
Kendro, S., & Narhetali, E. (2017). Comparing fear, humour, and rational advertising appeals and their effect on consumer memory and attitude centred on video-based e-commerce advertising. Diversity in Unity: Perspectives from Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, 595–603. doi: 10.1201/9781315225302-75
31 Krishnan, H. S., & Chakravarti, D. (2003). A Process Analysis of the Effects of Humorous
Advertising Executions on Brand Claims Memory. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13(3), 230–245. doi: 10.1207/s15327663jcp1303_05
Mondak, J. J., & Anderson, M. R. (2004). The knowledge gap: A reexamination of gender-based differences in political knowledge. The Journal of Politics, 66(2), 492-512.
Moyer-Gusé, E., Mahood, C., & Brookes, S. (2011). Entertainment education in the context of humor: Effects on safer sex intentions and risk perceptions. Health Communication, 26, 765–774. doi:10.1080/ 10410236.2011.566832
Nabi, R. L., & Krcmar, M. (2004). Conceptualizing media enjoyment as attitude:
Implications for mass media effects research. Communication Theory, 14, 288–310. doi:10.1111/j.1468- 2885.2004.tb00316.x
Nabi, R. L., Moyer-Gusé, E., & Byrne, S. (2007). All joking aside: A serious investigation into the persuasive effect of funny social issue messages. Communication
Monographs, 74(1), 29-54.
Nash, J., & Hoffman, L. H. (2009). Explaining the gap: The interaction of gender and news enjoyment in predicting political knowledge. Communication Research Reports, 26(2), 114-122.
32 Oliver, M. B., & Bartsch, A. (2010). Appreciation as audience response: Exploring
entertainment gratifications beyond hedonism. Human Communication Research, 36, 53e81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2009.01368.x
Parkin, M., Bos, A., & van Doorn, B. (2003). Laughing, learning, and liking: The effects of entertainment-based media on American politics. In annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.
Perry, S. D., Jenzowsky, S. A., Hester, J. B., King, C. M., & Yi, H. (1997). The influence of commercial humor on program enjoyment and evaluation. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 74(2), 388-399.
Prior, M. (2003). Any good news in soft news? The impact of soft news preference on political knowledge. Political communication, 20(2), 149-171.
Rich, F. (2002). Live by showbiz, die by showbiz. The New York Times, A15.
Rucker, D. D., Preacher, K. J., Tormala, Z. L., & Petty, R. E. (2011). Mediation analysis in social psychology: Current practices and new recommendations. Social and
Personality Psychology Compass, 5(6), 359-371.
Schneider, F. M., Weinmann, C., Roth, F. S., Knop, K., & Vorderer, P. (2016). Learning from entertaining online video clips? Enjoyment and appreciation and their differential relationships with knowledge and behavioral intentions. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 475-482.
33 Seels, B., Fullerton, K., Berry, L., & Horn, L. J. (2004). Research on learning from
television.
Singhal, A., & Rogers, E. M. (1989). Educating through television. Populi, 16(2), 39-47. Speer, E. (2017). When laughing gets serious: Gender Bias in Humor Perception.
Strick, M., Holland, R. W., Baaren, R. V., & Knippenberg, A. V. (2009). Humor in the Eye Tracker: Attention Capture and Distraction from Context Cues. The Journal of General Psychology, 137(1), 37–48. doi: 10.1080/00221300903293055
Swani, K., Weinberger, M. G., & Gulas, C. S. (2013). The impact of violent humor on advertising success: A gender perspective. Journal of Advertising, 42(4), 308-319. Williams, B. A., & Carpini, M. X. D. (2020). The eroding boundaries between news and
entertainment and what they mean for democratic politics. The Routledge Handbook of Mass Media Ethics, 252-263.
Yamamoto, M., Kushin, M. J., & Dalisay, F. (2018). How informed are messaging app users about politics? A linkage of messaging app use and political knowledge and participation. Telematics and Informatics, 35(8), 2376-2386.
