Humor Complexity and Political Influence: An Elaboration Likelihood Approach to the Effects of Humor Type inThe Daily Show with Jon Stewart

The effects of exposure to different types of humor on argument scrutiny were examined in the context of televised messages. A resource allocation hypothesis (Young, 2008 Young, D. G. 2008. The privileged role of the late-night joke: Exploring humor's role in disrupting argument scrutiny. Media Psychology, 11: 119–142. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and a discounting cue hypothesis (Nabi, Moyer-Guse, & Byrne, 2007 Nabi, R. L., Moyer-Guse, E. and Byrne, S. 2007. All joking aside: A serious investigation into the persuasive effect of funny social issue messages. Communication Monographs, 74: 29–54. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) are discussed and explored. Participants (N = 188) watched clips of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in which Stewart satirized American policy toward Iraq using either sarcasm (not complex) or irony (complex). Participants were then asked to counterargue these messages. A coding scheme was used to assess the extent of counterargumentation, and attitude change was also assessed based on a pretest/posttest semantic differential scale. Results indicated that irony reduced argument scrutiny on the premises of the messages relative to sarcasm, but no main effect was found for type of humor on attitude shift. Results also indicate a conditional effect of political efficacy, which moderates the effect of humor type on argument scrutiny. Implications for persuasion and public opinion are discussed.