CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Szászi, Áron József |
|---|---|
| Title | Political Humor Effects and Partisan Humor Bias: An Experimental Study in the United States |
| Summary | This thesis builds an original causal theory for political humor. First, it investigates the effects of hostile political joke exposure on political attitudes. It is theorized that symmetrical hostile joke exposure increases affective polarization and decreases trust in politicians. Second, the thesis develops a theory of partisan humor bias. It is hypothesized that people evaluate better pro-attitudinal jokes (jokes from co-partisan sources and hostile jokes about out-partisans). Furthermore, it is expected that affective polarization positively moderates joke source effect. It is also hypothesized that jokes with female joke sources are evaluated worse (benchmark for partisan source effect). To test these theories, survey experiments were conducted in a pilot study (N=149) and a second survey (N=796). Hypothesis are tested as part of the experiments of the second survey. The questionnaires were distributed on the survey platform Lucid.io, and respondents received financial compensation. Pilot survey shows that respondents found even soft critical and positive jokes moderately hostile (except a positive meme about Joe Biden). Joke target effects are significant, and partial heterogenous gender effect is revealed in the pilot. Republican males are negatively biased, while Democrat males are positively biased toward female joke sources. Joke target effect is significant in the second survey too, but gender effect does not replicate. Other hypotheses are rejected. The most important finding of this thesis is hostile humor exposure’s effect on affective polarization. It is significant and substantial, but in opposite direction than expected. Hostile humor exposure also increases trust in politicians, but it does not pass the pre-set inference criteria. |
| Supervisor | Tóka, Gábor; Simonovits, Gábor |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/szaszi_aron.pdf |
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