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Article Excerpt
On December 12, 2005, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists held a protest they referred to as "Black Ink Monday" in response to the cut of the editorial cartoon staff at the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun by the Tribune Company (Worcester 2007). While the protest was precipitated by the Tribune's cutback, it was also aimed at drawing attention to the more general trend of corporate downsizing of the profession. According to one source, there are now fewer than 60 full-time editorial cartoonists working in the United States today, down from over 200 in the 1980s (Summers 2006; Danjoux 2007). Many cartoonists, however, have turned their attention to the Internet as an alternative and/or supplementary venue (Lordan 2005, 166-69), suggesting that reports of the death of this particular genre may be premature.
In fact, political humor in general flourishes on the Internet, and this is perhaps no more evident than during a presidential campaign. For example, a two-minute YouTube video featuring John Edwards having his hair styled for a media appearance, set to the tune of "I Feel Pretty," has been viewed over one million times since it was posted in November of 2006. The search term "political humor" returns several millions of pages, depending on the search engine used, that feature cartoons, comics, videos, jokes, satire, and more. Most of these sites go unnoticed by the majority of people, but some are well visited. In 2004 the popular "This Land" video by JibJab.com was seen by over 10 million people in the first month after its release, three times the number of visitors the Bush and Kerry Web sites combined attracted during the same time period (Lohr 2004; "Political Networking" 2004). Although it was the most popular video of the campaign season (Darr and Barko 2004), other sites parodied candidates' Web sites (Cornfield 2004), offered high quality videos made for the Web (Darr and Barko 2004), or poked fun at the candidates by way of jokes, cartoons, parody, or satire.
But for all of its popularity, we know very little about the effects of online political humor. While it is possible that it simply entertains audiences, it is also possible that it might change the political attitudes of those who view it. This study builds on a small amount of research that examines the effect of various types of political humor. In it, I present the results of an online experiment conducted in late November of 2007 testing the effects of an online animated editorial cartoon on the presidential candidate evaluations of 18- to 24-year-old youth. The cartoon, created by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Walt Handelsman, lampoons the six candidates who were leading in their respective party's race for the nomination by presenting them as participants in a faux reality television show. Consistent with the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion, I find that the cartoon lowered overall evaluations of the candidates. Extending the analysis, I show that the clip did not change the candidate preferences of respondents, and analysis of the control group suggests that viewership of online humor may have a positive effect on political participation.
The research is important for several reasons. First, political humor during the pre-primary stage of the presidential campaign has greater potential to affect people's attitudes and evaluations for the simple reason that most presidential aspirants are still relatively unknown at this stage. And, although the regular audience for online political humor may be relatively small, the potential audience is much larger. Especially funny political humor has the potential to spread virally (Darr and Barko 2004). In addition, in the midst of a presidential campaign many can find themselves at the various decoy, spoof, or parody sites that use domain names similar to those of the candidates (Cornfield 2004; Crummy 2007).
The study also speaks to how youth are socialized into politics in the digital age. This is important because the mass media play an important role in shaping political attitudes, beliefs, and ultimately participation among youth (Chaffee, Ward, and Tipton 1970). However, the media habits of young people today are dramatically different than those of even a generation ago (Wattenberg 2006). Youth are increasingly turning to alternative sources of news for their understanding of the political world. For example, in 2007, 46% of 18- to 29-year-olds reported they got most of their election news from the Internet, an increase of 25% from 2004, while the percentage of those mentioning television as their main source dropped 15%. A full 27% say they got some information about the campaign from social networking sites (Pew 2008). This shift in media habits is still only dimly understood, but some research exists that suggest that the Internet might serve as an effective mobilization tool, increasing political engagement, interest, and participation among younger citizens (Shah, Kwak, and Holbert 2001).
This, in turn, is important because this age group appears to be more cynical about politics than other age groups and consistently ranks lowest in terms of traditional measures of political participation (Longo and Meyer 2006). Because political humor generally casts political leaders and institutions in a negative light, Internet political humor has the potential to exacerbate cynicism among youth, which may cause them to further disengage from the world of politics. Worse, any potential adverse effects could be lasting, as political attitudes are mainly formed in an individual's younger years (Sears 1983).
In the next section I briefly discuss research on editorial cartoons and place it in context of the small amount of research on the effects of political humor. Following that, I discuss the methodology of the research and present my findings. In the final section I discuss the implications of this study and suggest areas for further work.
Editorial Cartoons and the Effects of Political Humor
Evidence has been found suggesting that the political cartoon has been part of the human experience since at least 1360 B.C., when an unknown artist drew a caricature of the unpopular father-in-law of the Egyptian leader Tutankhamen (Danjoux 2007). The rise of editorial cartoons in America dates back to the mid-eighteenth century, attributable to increased population and literacy rates in the colonies, the growth of print media, and, of course, the political turbulence of the times (Lordan 2005). Throughout the nineteenth century editorial cartoons, with their simplification of the political world, played a significant role in the appeal of the daily newspaper. The political power of editorial cartoons during this period gained almost mythical status, as evidenced by the oft-repeated reaction (stop "them damn pictures") of Boss Tweed to Thomas Nast's cartoons (Danjoux 2007, 246). It is believed that political cartoons have the ability to leave "an indelible stain on [the] public image" of leaders (Danjoux 2007, 246). The reaction to the controversy in September of 2005 surrounding the cartoons depicting Mohammad in Danish newspapers suggests many people think editorial cartoons do matter (ibid.).
It is certainly true that "most cartoons ... [are] unflattering" to political leaders and institutions (Buell and Maus 1988, 856), that in general, negative images prevail (Edwards 2001). In fact, "as long as editorial cartoons have caricatured politicians, politicians have feared for their public image" (Buell and Maus 1988, 847). Do they in fact have the power to influence public opinion? Unfortunately, there is almost no behavioral research examining this question. There are a number of excellent collections of editorial cartoons (Hess and Northrop 1996; Lamb 2004; Trostle 2004; Lordan 2005), but most of the research on the subject examines the history and forms of the genre and the political messages, representations, symbols, and metaphors that they contain (Worcester 2007).
In fact, there is some reason to believe that editorial cartoons might not affect public opinion. First, editorial cartoons, like most political humor, builds on preexisting negative images that many people already hold about the target of the humor (Niven, Lichter, and Amundson 2003; Young 2004a). This makes a certain amount of sense, because the foundation of successful humor (a joke, satire, etc.) must be understood by the audience (Nilsen and Nilsen 2008). Second, it is not entirely clear that all editorial cartoons are interpreted the way they are intended by the artist, or even in the same way by different individuals (Carl 1968, 1970). In other words, even if they do have the potential to change opinion, the effects may vary from person to person.
This said, there is a small body of evidence that suggests that editorial cartoons may have some effect on political attitudes. An early study found that editorial cartoons, especially if accompanied with an editorial, had some ability to change opinions about the target being lampooned (Brinkman 1968). Other research (mainly in the fields of psychology and marketing) into the effects of humorous messages more generally suggest that they are both memorable and persuasive (Scott, Klein, and Bryant 1990; Schmidt 1994; Gruner 1996; Berg and Lippman 2001; Lyttle 2001). One early study suggested that the reason that humorous messages might have the potential to affect attitudes is that the receiver's tendency to critically examine the message (or counterargue) is reduced if a message is delivered with humor (Sternthall and Craig 1973). This might be, they speculated, due to the positive mood that results from receiving a humorous message or from increased likeability of the source of the humor.
This notion that persuasion and attitude change might result from a reduction in counterargument has subsequently found form in what is known as the ELM (Petty and Cacioppo 1986; Lyttle 2001). In this model of persuasion, communication is thought to be processed along what are known as central or peripheral routes. Central route processing is roughly akin to critical reasoning, involving high elaboration. If a message is processed along the central...
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