Late-Night Comedy and the Salience of the Candidates' Caricatured Traits in the 2000 Election

Abstract

This article examines the effects of exposure to late-night comedy shows on the salience of candidate traits prominent in the monologues of late-night comedians in the 2000 presidential campaign and assesses the moderating effects of political knowledge. Logistic regressions predict one's likelihood of mentioning caricatured traits as a function of late-night comedy exposure, demographic, political, and media exposure variables. The results suggest that viewing late-night comedy was not directly associated with the salience of the candidates' most caricatured traits, but among less politically knowledgeable individuals, the salience of certain caricatured traits did increase at higher levels of late-night comedy exposure. Across the models, the salience of caricatured candidate traits was associated with political knowledge and partisanship, suggesting that even if late-night comedy exposure does not increase the salience of candidate caricatures for the population overall, its content is hardly devoid of political meaning, as these caricatures are on the minds of political sophisticates.