Colbert Singing to the Choir
A recent study looked at liberal and conservative reactions to Stephen Colbert’s satire. Heather LeMarre, one of the study’s authors, was a guest on On The Media Friday. She explains that both liberals and conservatives actually think Colbert shares their political beliefs:
You might watch that and you might think that’s hilarious, he’s making fun of conservatives, look how funny that is, which is what we found for liberals.
However, if you’re conservative, you might look at that and say, that’s hilarious, he’s using comedy to expose flaws or holes in liberal thinking. So both sides basically see what they want to see. [...]
[The study] has been misinterpreted widely, actually, in the press, to date. There is no question in anyone’s mind, according to our results, that conservatives, in fact, do understand that it’s satire.
What’s going on here is that even though conservatives understand he’s parodying a conservative, they believe he’s truly targeting liberal thinking.
And there’s this:
Something that is being put out in a follow-up study is one interesting difference we did find is that the more conservative someone reported themself to be, the more they also reported Stephen Colbert to be a credible and excellent source for political information.
When we’re talking about just enjoyment or humor, we don’t find differences. But when we get down to sort of the brass tacks of do you use Stephen Colbert to get political information, and when he says something political do you find it credible and reliable, conservatives are more likely to say yes.
4 Responses to “Colbert Singing to the Choir”
I'd believe Colbert and Stewart before I believe anything on FOX or MSNBC. Sure, they have an agenda, but if you understand where they are coming from, you can apply the proper filter.
Totally hilarious. And as usual he is spot on. That commercial is so vague, so ambiguous…so stupidly religious. If you're going to have a stance against gay marriage, you can't just say “it's wrong”…lol..
You have to have specifics. Thank goodness for science and psychology.
Well then, 1/2 of the people polled are crazy!!
One consistent trait of the very conservative or very liberal is a tendency towards authoritarian follower thinking. And a consistent trait of authoritarian follower thinking as it was explained to me is the ability to leap from A to C without caring what B was as long as A and C fit with what you already believe. Also that when you have beliefs that are based more in gut instincts than facts, constant repetition of those ideas serves as a replacement for logical deductive thought. Looking at the success of talk radio on the right seems to lend a bit of credence to this idea. Your standard Berkley rally would serve as an example of that on the left. Also, the reaction to Colbert would seem an extreme example of agreement from the right because they like the final idea and don't care about the intervening steps of how they got there.