IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v99y2018i5p1572-1584.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Go Fix It: Comedy as an Agent of Political Activation

Author

Listed:
  • Leticia Bode
  • Amy B. Becker

Abstract

Objective One of the recent late‐night political comedy successes is John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, which includes frequent calls to action at the end of a segment, encouraging viewers to do something about the problem they have just learned about. Methods Using an experimental design, this study investigates the effects of these calls to action on the likelihood of engaging with the issue of net neutrality. Results Findings suggest that exposure to political comedy activates viewers to engage in small but meaningful behaviors, but does not spill over to encourage more difficult political behaviors, nor does it boost political efficacy. Conclusion The call to action, encouraging viewer participation in remedying a problem addressed in a political comedy show, seems effective at encouraging viewers to participate. However, it may not make them feel more equipped to do so.

Suggested Citation

  • Leticia Bode & Amy B. Becker, 2018. "Go Fix It: Comedy as an Agent of Political Activation," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1572-1584, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:99:y:2018:i:5:p:1572-1584
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12521
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12521
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.12521?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Waring, Justin & Bishop, Simon & Clarke, Jenelle & Roe, Bridget, 2023. "Becoming active in the micro-politics of healthcare re-organisation: The identity work and political activation of doctors, nurses and managers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 333(C).
    2. Amy B. Becker, 2022. "Let's talk about the Israel–Palestine conflict: Does exposure to political comedy about the Middle East influence policy attitudes?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 103(3), pages 724-736, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:99:y:2018:i:5:p:1572-1584. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.