Examining the Intertextuality of Fictional Political Comedy and Real-World Political News

This study examines the intertextuality of a fictional political comedy and a political news article. In an experiment, participants watched the political comedy Man of the Year or a control film, read a politically relevant news article on electronic voting, and were asked their discussion intention about the political issue featured in the news article. Beyond direct effects, the mediating influence of elaboration about the politically relevant news article on discussion intent was analyzed. Results revealed no main effect of political comedy viewing on discussion intent, and no mediating effect of elaboration either. However, viewing the fictional political comedy was associated with higher levels of elaboration about the related news article, which shows evidence of intertextuality among media texts. Moreover, perceived external realism of the fictional political comedy was a significant positive predictor of discussion intent about the news article. Results also showed perceived external realism about the fictional political comedy to be a nearly significant moderator of the elaboration and discussion intent relationship. A broader discussion regarding the theoretical and practical implications of the findings is included.