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This essay offers a comprehensive framework for the investigation of presidential debate humor. Given the importance of presidential debates for educating and persuading voters and the ubiquity of humor in debate events, it stands to reason that communication research would benefit by a deepened scholarly understanding of humor in the debate context. In this essay, a typology is offered as a catalyst for systematic assessment of debate humor, undergirding an expanded conception of a debate event and its participants. Examples from the 2012 general election debates, along with pertinent humor scholarship, are highlighted within this project's effort to help advance the underdeveloped research domain of debate humor. Key Words: political humor, 2012 presidential debates, incongruity, superiority, relief, The study of political humor is on the rise with the growing attention by scholars to programs like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report (e.g., Amarasingam, [...]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01470.x Byline: R. Lance Holbert (1), R. Kelly Garrett (1), Laurel S. Gleason (1) Abstract: This article takes up Bennett and Iyengar's (2008) call for debate about the future of political communication effects research. We outline 4 key criticisms. First, Bennett and Iyengar are too quick to dismiss the importance of attitude reinforcement, long recognized as an important type of political media influence. Second, the authors take too narrow a view of the sources of political information, remaining fixated on news. Third, they offer an incomplete portrayal of selective exposure, exaggerating the extent to which individuals avoid attitude-discrepant information. Finally, they lean toward determinism when describing the role technologies play in shaping our political environment. In addition, we challenge Bennett and Iyengar's assertion that only brand new theory can serve to help researchers understand today's political communication landscape. We argue that existing tools, notably the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), retain much utility for examining political media effects. Contrary to Bennett and Iyengar's claims, the ELM suggests that the contemporary political information environment does not necessarily lead to minimal effects. Author Affiliation: (1)School of Communication, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA Article note: R. L. Holbert; e-mail: r.lance.holbert@gmail.com

The study of political mass communication information outlet effects has been dominated by two types of studies, those which focus on a single outlet and those which look at the comparative influence of multiple outlets. The current study seeks to advance a third study type by offering a theory of political campaign media connectedness. Three axioms are offered in this work. In addition, a series of hypotheses involving tire political communication campaign information outlets (conservative political talk radio, FOX cable TV news, daily newspapers, national network TV news, debate viewing) are posited. This work emphasizes the need to understand how various information outlets function in coordination with one another to produce a potentially diverse set of direct and indirect political campaign media effects. Future lines of theoretical inquiry and empirical research are outlined. Keywords: Political Elections; Media Relationships; Campaign Effects; Debate Viewing; Theory Building

Elections should serve to reaffirm a citizenry's belief in the legitimacy of its political processes and outcomes. This study focuses on perceptions of vote count accuracy as a criterion variable. An argument is offered that voters' personal perceptions of post-election vote count accuracy are predicted by vote choice, with those citizens who did not vote for the winning candidate having to deal with the cognitive dissonance created by the election outcome. The model offered in this work focuses on an interaction between partisan strength and debate viewing as predictor of vote choice. In addition, an indirect effect of partisanship on vote choice through debate viewing is explored. Debate viewing is shown to promote partisan voting, and vote choice serves as a strong predictor of perceptions of vote count accuracy. A subset of the 2004 National Annenberg general election panel data (N = 5,660) was used for this secondary analysis. Keywords: U.S. presidential elections; cognitive dissonance; debate viewing; partisanship; vote accuracy

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.00404.x Byline: William L. Benoit (1), R. Lance Holbert (2) Author Affiliation: (1)Department of Communication, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211 (2)School of Communication, The Ohio State University, Columbus OH 43210 Article note: William L. Benoit; e-mail: benoitw@missouri.edu

This study extends priming research in political communication by focusing on an alternative political information source (i.e., Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11), affect rather than cognitions, and the existence of intra-affective ambivalence. In addition, two moderator variables are analyzed: political party identification and need for closure. There is a statically significant three-way interaction between the viewing of F 9-11, political party identification, and need for closure relative to the dependent variable of affective ambivalence toward George W. Bush. High need for closure Republicans who viewed F 9-11 exhibited pronounced levels of Bush-affective ambivalence. In addition, high need for closure Independents who viewed F 9-11 exhibited far lower ambivalence toward Bush relative to their control group peers. The findings are discussed relative to the roles performed by emerging alternative political media and the expansion of the theory of priming within the context of political communication.

General questions concerning the role of entertainment media in politics permeated the 2004 election cycle. Political communication scholars are beginning to systematically analyze potential sociopolitical ramifications stemming from entertainment television viewing, but one difficulty with this emerging area of research is an inability to forge connections between seemingly disparate research agendas. Several distinct lines of research are summarized in this article and forged into a coherent whole through the lens of Zillmann's disposition theory and the broader study of media enjoyment. Extant works devoted to the study of entertainment television and politics are summarized, and a nine-part typology is introduced. This article closes with a discussion of how the typology can serve to advance the study of entertainment television and politics. Keywords: entertainment television; politics; disposition theory; media enjoyment

This study uses framing to assess how the office of the President of the United States is depicted on NBC's The West Wing. This work represents a theoretical and empirical domain extension of framing in political communication, an area of study dominated by analyses of news content. Three distinct presidential depictions are analyzed: chief executive, political candidate, and private citizen. This quantitative content analysis of the 2001-2002 The West Wing television season addresses the frequency with which the fictional president performs these three roles and posits several hypotheses concerning the relative presentation of personality characteristics across contexts. All three roles are represented with substantive frequency, with the chief executive role dominating. Principled character traits are evident more often when the fictional President Bartlet is acting as chief executive than as a private citizen. Conversely, Bartlet presents more engaging personality traits when acting as a private citizen than as either chief executive or political candidate. Implications for these finding are outlined and future lines of research are detailed. Keywords: The West Wing; Framing; Depictions; Role display; Entertainment television; Politics

An analysis of campaigning debate viewing as a mediator between news use and vote choice for the general voting populations is presented. The analysis shows that debate viewing acts as partisan reinforcement for democratic and republican voters.

In recent years, research has come to recognize that nonpolitical associations have unintended but important consequences for citizens' participation in public affairs. Scholars theorize that these associational activities embedded within social networks and sustained by confidence in the motives of others--encourage and facilitate participation in civic life. This study tests and broadens these theses by (1) assessing the relative impact of different types of associational activities (i.e., informal socializing, public attendance, and religious participation) and (2) examining interactive relationships between these activities and generalized interpersonal trust. Findings show that all of these associational activities significantly contribute to civic engagement. Further more, all three interactions between the social associations and social trust are significant, indicating that those involved in associational activities are even more likely to become civic participants when they hold trusting attitudes toward others.

This paper evaluates the perception of the role of the U.S. President by people who watch NBC's 'The West Wing.'

In this study, three approaches commonly used by communication scientists to specify structural relationships using full-information maximum likelihood structural equation modeling are investigated. Specifically, a simulation study using Monte Carlo techniques was conducted to compare the structural paths generated by each of the three structural equation model types. Two of the three approaches utilized forms of latent variable modeling, and the third approach employed observed variables only. Of the three, the observed variable approach produced the most conservative structural path coefficients, whereas the hybrid latent variable approach generated the least attenuated coefficients. The appropriateness of each technique in modeling structural relationships is discussed and an argument is made for greater use of latent variable structural equation modeling in the field of communication. Keywords: structural equation model; latent variable; Monte Carlo; media effects; media exposure

Citizens can gain a better understanding of the important issues of a campaign and where candidates stand on those issues from three primary sources: direct candidate-to-citizen mass media messages (e.g., political advertisements, debates), news (e.g., newspapers, television news), or discussion with fellow citizens. The current study conducted a secondary analysis of 1996 American National Election Study (ANES) data to replicate Brians and Wattenberg's (1996) findings concerning the relative influence of political advertisements, television news use, and newspaper use on voter issue knowledge and salience in the 1992 United States presidential campaign. We also analyzed two additional communication information sources, general political discussion and debate viewing. The effects of political advertisement recall, television news viewing, and newspaper use replicated across election studies. General political discussion was found to affect both issue knowledge and salience, and when introduced into the regression analyses nullifies the predictive power of political advertisement recall for knowledge. Talk's influence on salience wanes in subsequent analyses. Viewing the first debate was a strong predictor of issue knowledge, but was not associated with issue salience. Advertisement recall maintained predictive power for issue salience even after taking into account the other four information sources, and watching the second debate also predicted salience. The combination of results presents evidence that candidate-to-citizen and citizen-to-citizen communication play unique roles in determining levels of issue knowledge and salience.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a viable multivariate tool used by communication researchers for the past quarter century. Building off Cappella (1975) as well as McPhee and Babrow (1987), this study summarizes the use of this technique from 1995-2000 in 37 communication-based academic journals. We identify and critically assess 3 unique methods for testing structural relationships via SEM in terms of the specification, estimation, and evaluation of their respective structural equation models. We provide general guidelines for the use of SEM and make recommendations concerning latent variable models, sample size, reporting parameter estimates, model fit statistics, cross-sectional data, univariate normality, cross-validation, nonrecursive modeling, and the decomposition of effects (direct, indirect, and total).

This article examines the influence of Internet usage on social capital, civic engagement, interpersonal trust and overall life-contentment; while the use of Internet, television and newspaper among Generation X, Baby Boom and Civic Generation are compared. The authors find that people who use the Internet for information have a positive relation with production of social capital, while people who use the Internet for recreation-social purposes have a low level of civic engagement.

Participation in a deliberative forum has received relatively little scrutiny as opposed to more traditional forms of participation. This study examines direct and indirect effects of discussion network characteristics on willingness to participate in a deliberative forum. Using data collected in a telephone survey of 416 respondents in Madison, Wisconsin, in the fall of 1997, the authors employ structural equation modeling techniques to explore the roles that local media use, interpersonal discussion of local politics, and reflection of information play in mediating the relationship between discussion networks and participation in public forums. Findings show that network heterogeneity directly influences forum participation, suggesting that membership in heterogeneous networks ensures greater nontraditional participation. Also, having more discussion partners makes frequent discussion of issues and higher levels of local public affairs media use more likely. Communication processes lead to reflection about local issues, which enhances forum participation. Finally, normative implications are addressed.

Explanations of why people use various types of media content have been limited mainly to demographic location and self-interested motivational variables. The authors present an alternative, sociotropic source of influence on communication patterns: judgments of how the world works (worldviews), what societal values ought to be pursued (materialism vs. postmaterialism), and what normative roles the news media should play. A well-fitting structural equation model is used to account for substantial amounts of variance in entertainment television viewing, newspaper public affairs reading, and discussion of controversial issues. Sociotropic judgments mediate much of the influence of demographics and ideology on patterns of communication. Diversity in the composition of personal discussion networks has a strong and direct influence on communication patterns., The effects of media and interpersonal discussion on individuals' opinions and behavior have been supported by a growing body of evidence. Explanations of why people use various types of content [...]

The main question in political communication research is how media helps citizens in becoming informed voters, communication often focuses on the means, while political science directs its attention on the ends. The studies focus on traditional form of media like newspapers, TV, to assess the influence on voters and some innovative ways of distributing political information are also discussed.

An analysis of intramedia mediation, an often overlooked political communication-based media effect and the indirect effects that stem from relationships that exist among various forms of media use, is carried out. The analysis reveals that the overall influence of public affairs media use on citizens knowledge about political campaigns increases significantly as a result of taking into account those relationships that exist among various forms of news use.

Data from the 2000 National Election Survey in the U.S. indicates that voters who lived in battleground states had greater issue knowledge and issue salience than those who lived in states in which television advertisements were not broadcasted. Results provide evidence supporting the importance of presidential campaigns and advertisements and suggest that Electoral College may have a pernicious effect on representative democracy.

Research on the effects of watching presidential debates tends to show that these messages can Jester learning about the candidates' issue positions and influence voters' impressions of the candidates. This study uses a pretest/posttest design to assess more subtle effects of watching a 2000 presidential debate on attitudes and vote intention. Leadership and overall policy stance became more important factors in vote choice after watching the debate. Specific groups of issues also became more important in vote choice. Viewers reacted to the candidates differentially: Bush enhanced perceptions of his character (but not of his policy positions), while Gore improved perceptions of his policy positions (but not of his character). The data also reveal that the debates increased the confidence of vote choices for those who did not change their preferred candidate over the course of this study (which could make them more likely to vote on election day and/or less likely to change their vote choice). This study demonstrates a variety of potentially important effects of watching presidential debates. Key words: Presidential Debate Watching, Policy, Character, Leadership Ability, Vote Intention, Vote Confidence

This study examined the effects of issue advertising on candidate preferences and the democratic process, comparing the impact of party- and PAC-sponsored advertising against candidate-sponsored positive and contrast ads. Results revealed that the influence of political advertising varies depending on party affiliation. For Republicans, candidate-sponsored contrast and party-sponsored ads are most influential, but with unaffiliated viewers, candidate-sponsored positive ads are most effective whereas party-sponsored ads are the least persuasive. Effects of political advertising on the democratic system were especially revealing. Results revealed that candidate advertising enhances viewer interest in campaigns and knowledge of candidates and their positions, but that other effects vary based on party affiliation. Finally, the study tested inoculation as an antidote to system-based consequences of issue advertising. Results revealed that inoculation was able to protect viewers against the consequences of party-sponsored ads. However, with PAC-sponsored ads, efficacy was restricted to Republican viewers.

Robert Putnam asserts that the decline in social capital in the US is caused by the increasing time spent on television. This hypothesis was refuted by researchers by investigating the level of reduction caused by television viewing to social capital. Analyses of data show that civic engagement was not affected by time spent on television through perceptions of time pressure. It was also indicated that time spent reading newspapers decreases perception of time pressure.