April 28, 2009
I don’t get it
It’s one thing that conservatives don’t know that Stephen Colbert is satire; it’s entirely another to suggest that the show proves confirmation bias in both conservatives and liberals.
This study investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology on perceptions of Stephen Colbert. Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguous political messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert’s political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert’s political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion.
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This goes to show that facts can be truthy too.
My less racially-enlightened acquaintances love Chris Rock and Carlos Mencia as much or more than the liberals. More confirmation of what they always knew to be true.