Primacy Effects of The Daily Showand National TV News ...

Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2007

Primacy Effects of The Daily Show and
National TV News Viewing: Young
Viewers, Political Gratifications, and
Internal Political Self-Efficacy

R. Lance Holbert, Jennifer L. Lambe, Anthony D. Dudo,
and Kristin A. Carlton

This study examines program ordering effects derived from viewing
CNN television news relative to The Daily Show on the political gratifi-
cations associated with both types of information sources. Internal po-
litical self-efficacy is assessed as an individual-difference moderator.
Main primacy effects are found on the gratifications associated with
both national television news viewing and The Daily Show viewing.
However, The Daily Show primacy effect on the political gratifications
associated with national television news viewing was isolated among
those participants who retain low internal political self-efficacy. Ramifi-
cations for these findings are outlined and future lines of research are
summarized.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has become a fixture on the U.S. political land-
scape (Mutz, 2004). There is much discussion within the popular press as to the legiti-
macy of emerging satirical public affairs outlets (Trigoboff, 2001), with public opinion
polling pointing toward this program type being particularly influential among youn-
ger voters (Rutenberg, 2000). A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press reveals that 21% of 18- to 29-year-olds regularly turn to satirical
public affairs television to obtain information about presidential politics (Bauer,

R. Lance Holbert (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin–Madison) is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Communication at the University of Delaware. His research interests include political communication, per-
suasion, and structural equation modeling.
Jennifer L. Lambe (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communica-
tion at the University of Delaware. Her research interests include audience attitudes about First Amendment
issues, free expression theory, and media content regulations.
Anthony D. Dudo (M.A., University of Delaware) is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism & Mass
Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research interests include science and environ-
mental communication, political communication, and media effects.
Kristin A. Carlton (M.A., Florida State University) is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at
Florida State University. Her research interests include media effects, entertainment theory, and persuasion.

© 2007 Broadcast Education Association Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 51(1), 2007, pp. 20–38
20

Holbert et al./THE DAILY SHOW AND PRIMACY EFFECTS 21

2004). In addition to attracting the youth demographic, the 2004 National Annenberg
Election Survey revealed The Daily Show audience to be well educated and highly
knowledgeable about politics in general (Young, 2004a).

The introduction of The Daily Show as a potential source for political information
raises questions concerning how this outlet functions alongside more traditional
means of public affairs consumption. Of particular interest to this study is whether the
use of one type of programming can alter the perceptions of the other within the
minds of audience members. More specifically, this experimental study focuses on
how varied consumption patterns of national television news and The Daily Show al-
ter the political gratifications associated with the viewing of these respective public
affairs outlets.

The Daily Show offers a satirical critique of various elements of U.S. democracy,
capitalism, and, of special importance to this study, journalism as a profession. In
short, this outlet presents a competing message type to more traditional forms of
television news programming (Baym, 2005). More specifically, the competing
messages of various national TV news outlets and The Daily Show offer radically
different perspectives concerning the ability of news organizations to be valued
information sources for political information. Persuasion scholars have long stud-
ied the influence of competing claims (Miller & Campbell, 1959), and this area of
research remains a permanent fixture in the social psychology literature (Eagly &
Chaiken, 1993). There is solid empirical evidence supporting the claim that when
someone comes into contact with two competing messages in immediate succes-
sion, the first message consumed tends to be more persuasive (i.e., “the primacy
effect”; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p. 78). The primacy effect can serve as a founda-
tion from which to begin an assessment of how the combined consumption of The
Daily Show and national television news influences the political gratifications as-
sociated with the respective political information outlets within a conditional
model of media influence.

Young viewers were placed into one of three stimulus conditions for this experi-
ment. Some participants were first shown The Daily Show, and this mediated com-
munication experience was immediately followed by viewing a half-hour of na-
tional television news (i.e., CNN Headline News). A second group came into
contact with these same program types, but in the opposite order of consumption.
Finally, a third set of individuals served as a control group (i.e., no stimulus). Inter-
nal political self-efficacy is hypothesized to serve as a moderator between contact
with the public affairs stimuli and the political gratifications associated with the
mass communication viewing experiences. Literature summaries concerning the
study of entertainment television and politics, The Daily Show and political satire,
political media gratifications, primacy effects, and internal political self-efficacy are
provided. Four hypotheses serve as a foundation for the study. The experimental
design and results are summarized, followed by a discussion of The Daily Show as
political communication.

22 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2007

Entertainment Television and Politics

Political communication scholarship has long treated entertainment and news
media content as immiscible (Bennett, 1998), with all major political communi-
cation theories focused on a single type of media content, traditional news
(Krosnick & Kinder, 1990; McCombs & Reynolds, 2002; Scheufele, 1999). How-
ever, recent works are moving beyond the entertainment–news divide by analyz-
ing potential political outcomes relative to soft news (Baum, 2003), situation
comedies (Cantor, 1999), crime dramas (Holbrook & Hill, 2005),
made-for-television docudramas (Delli Carpini & Williams, 1996), political dra-
mas (Holbert, Pillion, et al., 2003), and late-night talk shows (Young, 2004b). In-
deed, Mutz (2001) stated that “the traditional distinctions between news and en-
tertainment content are no longer very helpful” (p. 231), and the discipline
appears to be embracing this point of view.

Williams and Delli Carpini (2002) argued that “the political relevance of a cartoon
character like Lisa Simpson is as important as the professional norms of Dan Rather,
Tom Brokaw, or Peter Jennings” (p. B15). Not only is the study of entertainment televi-
sion relevant to the basic tenets of mass-communication-related political communi-
cation scholarship (see Holbert, 2005b), but many scholars argue there is a need to
study more than news content from a political perspective because the messages be-
ing offered via entertainment outlets are qualitatively distinct from those provided
through traditional journalism programming (e.g., Gamson, 1999; Holbert, Kwak, &
Shah, 2003). The satirical political messages offered via entertainment outlets like The
Tonight Show, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, or The Daily Show are some of the
more explicit examples of how audience members come into contact with entertain-
ment-based political messages that are distinct from the storylines derived through
traditional news conventions (Niven, Lichter, & Amundson, 2003). Shah (1998) noted
that a diverse set of sociopolitical television messages needs to be analyzed to best re-
flect the inherent complexity of the medium. The empirical study of entertainment
television as political communication simply reflects a desire to better understand a
set of sociopolitical outcomes relative to the varied ways in which citizens use this in-
fluential form of mass communication.

Not only is it important for political communication scholarship to begin to explore
the potential political effects of various entertainment television outlets, but also to as-
sess how the use of various forms of entertainment television might affect perceptions
of more traditional public affairs programming. It is not just the case that entertain-
ment television shows can have unique effects on citizens relative to news, but that
viewing certain entertainment content has the potential to influence how traditional
forms of public affairs material are perceived and subsequently consumed by an audi-
ence. This point is particularly relevant to The Daily Show, which models itself on the
structure and norms of (or some would argue as a functional alternative to) television
newscasts (Baym, 2005; Peyser, 2004).

Holbert et al./THE DAILY SHOW AND PRIMACY EFFECTS 23

The Daily Show and Satire

The Daily Show offers viewers a satirical perspective of not only the stories domi-
nating a news cycle, but the tasks of information gathering and storytelling performed
by journalists. Jon Stewart strikes the pose of an anchorman, while also taking on the
traditional satirist’s role of “skeptical and bemused observer” (Knight, 2004, p. 3).
Stewart retains a cadre of comedians who gather information on and tell stories about
a variety of events, from the substantive to the trivial. In addition, the program offers
Stewart, his writing and reporting staffs, and other comedians (e.g., Lewis Black) an
opportunity to provide comedic interpretations on a wide range of public affairs top-
ics. As Baym (2005) argued, “The show functions as both entertainment and news, si-
multaneously pop culture and public affairs” (p. 262). This half-hour program de-
voted to political and journalistic satire is unique for U.S. television, but the show’s
format stems from previous comedic outlets using a similar mode of presentation as a
vehicle for social commentary (e.g., Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update”).

All forms of satire, whether they are political or take on some other form of broader
social commentary, have been defined as “pre-generic” (Knight, 2004, p. 4), in that it
is in the nature of satire to exploit preexisting genres. In the case of The Daily Show,
the preexisting genre is the national television newscast. The basic aesthetics of the
program (e.g., opening music, studio setting) seek to mock TV newscasts. In this
sense, The Daily Show is like other forms of satire in that it is “a playfully critical dis-
tortion of the familiar” (Feinberg, 1967, p. 86). Audience members, no matter the de-
gree to which they regularly watch national television newscasts, retain at least a lim-
ited understanding of the genre’s format. The Daily Show uses the audience’s
familiarity with the national nightly newscast as a means by which to satirize the prac-
tice of journalism. As a result, the two program types are intricately connected in peo-
ple’s minds. Therefore, it is important to begin to address how the use of one program
type can affect perceptions of the other program type, and how viewing various com-
binations of both program types affect audience perceptions of each form of public af-
fairs media content.

The Daily Show averages more than 1 million TV viewers each evening (Levin,
2003). The program points its satirical poker not just at those individuals and social
institutions making headlines, but the news industry that constructs the headlines. It is
important for empirical political communication researchers to better understand
how coming into contact with the messages being provided on a program of this type
can influence viewers’ perceptions of more traditional forms of television news, and
vice versa.

Political Media Gratifications

The rise of The Daily Show has brought a series of empirical questions concerning
its influence on basic democratic processes. One type of knowledge can be obtained

24 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2007

from better understanding the unique effects of this program on the U.S. electorate
when compared to more traditional political communication outlets (e.g., political
advertising, debates). Research of this kind typically introduces a number of political
information outlets and assesses the relative predictive value of one outlet versus an-
other for a host of dependent variables (e.g., Brians & Wattenberg, 1996; Holbert,
Benoit, Hansen, & Wen, 2002; Weaver & Drew, 2001). This approach to political
communication effects provides important empirical insights, but there is little effort
made to understand how the information outlets relate to one another in producing a
set of outcomes.

Holbert (2005a) argued that political communication scholarship should not sim-
ply look past analyses of relations among various political media stimuli. Instead,
there is a real need to better understand how the consumption of one type of media
stimulus can influence the perceptions or use of another media stimulus. This argu-
ment is particularly relevant to the study of emerging forms of entertainment-based
political information and more traditional forms of public affairs media consumption.
For example, Young and Tisinger (2006) argued for and found empirical evidence to
support the claim that late-night comedy viewing for political information purposes is
not supplanting the use of more traditional forms of television news viewing. Instead,
the two forms of media use complement one another in aiding citizens to better un-
derstand the major issues of the day. Of particular interest to this study is whether
viewing The Daily Show, which presents a critical view of U.S. journalism, influences
people’s perceptions of the political gratifications associated with national television
news viewing. Thus, this study seeks to assess stimulus-to-stimulus relations that can
shed light on how various types of political information outlets function in coordina-
tion with one another as citizens work their way through today’s complex media envi-
ronment.

The study of political media gratifications has been a part of political communica-
tion research for several decades (see Perse, 1994, for a brief summary). Palmgreen,
Wenner, and Rayburn (1980) pointed out that the “study of the uses and gratifications
of television news programs has its origins in Lasswell’s (1948) conceptualization of
the functions of communication” (p. 167). Specific measures of political media gratifi-
cations were first used to better understand why people tune in to watch political tele-
vision broadcasts (e.g., Blumler & McQuail, 1969), and similar measures have also
been employed in McLeod and Becker’s (1974) transactional model of media influ-
ence in an effort to link motivations for political media consumption to tangible me-
dia effects. McLeod and Becker found political media gratifications for TV news to
serve as statistically significant and unique predictors (beyond the predictive value of
TV news exposure) of vote likelihood, political participation, and exposure to politi-
cal advertising. McLeod, Becker, and Byrnes (1974) also found that the political me-
dia gratifications can serve as a hedge against certain types of media effects (e.g.,
agenda setting).

Overall, political media gratifications have been linked to the study of (a) why peo-
ple consume political media, (b) how individual-level media orientations function

Holbert et al./THE DAILY SHOW AND PRIMACY EFFECTS 25

alongside actual political media use, and (c) important conditional media effects on a
wide range of dependent variables deemed important to basic democratic processes.
In short, the study of political media gratifications is central to the core aspects of po-
litical communication research. Variations of the original political gratifications mea-
sures have been employed to assess why people engage a variety of political informa-
tion outlets, beyond just TV news (e.g., political rallies [Sanders & Kaid, 1981],
newspaper reading [Becker, 1979]). However, political gratifications measures have
never been used for entertainment-based political media like The Daily Show.

McLeod and Becker (1981) described three distinct methodological approaches to
the study of media uses and gratifications. The first and most commonly used method
is the survey-based technique of self-report gratifications-sought measures and asso-
ciating these items with actual media consumption or the indirect effects of gratifica-
tions sought on a given set of post-media-use outcome variables (Rubin, 2002). A sec-
ond technique is also survey-based and uses more traditional survey items (i.e.,
demographic, psychographic, and contextual variables) as indirect or surrogate mea-
sures of motives for media use and then analyzing the relations between these vari-
ables, different types of media use, and the effects associated with mass communica-
tion consumption (e.g., Shah, 1998). The final and least used technique involves
experimentation. More specifically, researchers can study how the manipulation of
media stimuli or the conditions under which media stimuli are consumed alters me-
dia gratifications.

This study employs the latter experimental approach. The study seeks to assess
whether the consumption of The Daily Show influences the political gratifications as-
sociated with national television news viewing, and vice versa. There are a number of
ways to create media stimuli manipulations to achieve this goal. However, it was es-
sential to this study to not treat The Daily Show and national television news viewing
in relative isolation. As a result, it was necessary for those participants in a stimulus
condition to receive both types of political media stimuli. Once multiple stimuli be-
come imperative, there is a natural questioning of whether varied patterns of con-
sumption will make a difference. In short, the study of message order effects can serve
as a foundation from which to begin a broader empirical assessment of how the com-
bined consumption of The Daily Show and national television news influences the
political gratifications associated with the viewing of the respective stimuli.

The Primacy Effect

The study of message order effects has been a mainstay of persuasion research
since the inception of the discipline (e.g., Knower, 1936). A significant amount of time
and attention has been spent trying to better understand what Lund (1925) first identi-
fied as the dominance of the first persuasive message when two competing messages
are provided to an individual one immediately after the other (e.g., Hovland, 1951;
Hovland & Mandel, 1957). Much of this research has found the primacy effect to exist

26 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2007

across a variety of contexts (Lana, 1961; Luchins, 1957), but there were only sporadic
theoretical discussions as to why this should be the case (McGuire, 1966). Lund
(1925) suggested that audience members view the second of two competing mes-
sages in a more critical light. Hovland (1951) argued that the primacy effect may be
due in some part to audience members engaging in proactive inhibition. Anderson
(1965) noted that participants may simply pay less attention to the latter message, re-
sulting in less potential influence. Finally, Insko (1967) provided a detailed argument
that contact with the first message can alter the very nature of the meaning of the sec-
ond, resulting in the latter message being purely reactionary relative to the first mes-
sage. In short, there is relatively consistent support that primacy effects do exist under
several different conditions, but the theoretical discussions concerning these empiri-
cal findings have been scattered.

It is not the underlying motivation of this study to test competing theoretical claims
concerning why primacy effects persist. Instead, the primacy effect is used as a start-
ing point by which to explore the more general empirical question of whether view-
ing The Daily Show can influence viewers’ perceptions of the political gratifications
associated with national television news, and vice versa. Given that The Daily Show
is a satirical presentation of journalism as a profession, it is argued that those partici-
pants who view The Daily Show prior to national television news will retain weaker
political gratifications associated with national television news relative to those indi-
viduals who view national television news prior to The Daily Show. Similarly, partici-
pants who view national television news prior to The Daily Show will retain weaker
political gratifications associated with The Daily Show relative to those people who
view The Daily Show prior to national television news. Thus, the following two hy-
potheses are posited:

H1a: Political gratifications associated with national TV news viewing are weakest
among those participants who consume The Daily Show just prior to national tele-
vision news.

H1b: Political gratifications associated with The Daily Show viewing are weakest among
those participants who consume national television news just prior to The Daily
Show.

Internal Political Self-Efficacy as Moderator

The pair of primacy effects just posited offer a first step for studying how the com-
bined consumption of The Daily Show and national television news affects audience
members’ perceptions of the respective outlets. However, recent work on the primacy
effect by Haugtvedt and Wegener (1994) has reemphasized the need to explore the
conditional nature of this type of persuasive effect relative to individual differences.
The individual-difference variable focused on in this study is internal political
self-efficacy (Craig, Niemi, & Silver, 1990). Niemi, Craig, and Mattel (1991) defined
internal political self-efficacy as “beliefs about one’s own competence to understand,

Holbert et al./THE DAILY SHOW AND PRIMACY EFFECTS 27

and to participate effectively in, politics” (p. 1407). Internal political self-efficacy is a
latent variable that is comprised of two observable dimensions, perceived compe-
tence and perceived effectiveness. The competence dimension concerns whether cit-
izens believe they have the ability to understand the major political issues of the day,
and the latter dimension focuses on whether voters feel their actions matter in terms of
how political decisions are made. There is the potential for the main primacy effects
generated by varied consumption patterns of The Daily Show and national television
news to differ across those high versus low in internal political self-efficacy.

Satire requires a unique connection to be formed between the satirist and the audi-
ence member. As Knight (2004) remarked, “the addressee and the addresser must
agree that the author’s imaginative attack and the reader’s actual condemnation are
justified by the values articulated or implied by the satire” (p. 41). The satirical mes-
sage offered by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show is that national television news is
fraudulent; journalists are acting more like guard dogs than watchdogs of the public
and private power elite (see Olien, Donohue, & Tichenor, 1995, for guard dog vs.
watchdog argument). National television news in particular has become an outlet
where the two major political parties can present their particular framing of issues,
whereas these programs used to be places for “journalism-as-public inquiry” (Baym,
2005, p. 259). This message about journalism would be particularly well received by
those individuals who already feel somewhat disenfranchised by the political system,
those low in internal political self-efficacy. In other words, the implicit agreement
concerning the moral justification of Stewart’s satirical commentary is strongest
among those low in internal political self-efficacy, and this deeper connection to the
satirical elements of the show should lead to a stronger primacy effect for The Daily
Show among those low in internal political self-efficacy. Thus, the following hypothe-
sis is offered:

H2a: Internal political self-efficacy serves as a moderator in the relation between the ex-
perimental stimulus condition and the political gratifications associated with na-
tional TV news in that the primacy effect for The Daily Show →national television
news condition is more pronounced among those participants who are low in in-
ternal political self-efficacy.

Applying the same basic argument to national television news, a pronounced pri-
macy effect for national television news on the political gratifications associated with
The Daily Show would be expected among those who are high in internal political
self-efficacy. Those individuals who perceive themselves to be more politically com-
petent and to have a meaningful say in how political decisions are made are more
likely to cling to the idea that national television journalism can aid them in better un-
derstanding the political system and how to be more effective when they engage in
political activities. Thus, the following hypothesis is posited:

H2b: Internal political self-efficacy serves as a moderator in the relation between the ex-
perimental stimulus condition and political gratifications associated with The

28 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2007

Daily Show in that the primacy effect for the national television news →The Daily
Show condition is more pronounced among those who are high in internal politi-
cal self-efficacy.

Method

Participants

This study involved undergraduate students enrolled in various introductory
courses offered by the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware
(N = 201). The mean age for the participant pool was 20.07. All participants were of
legal voting age. The mean for a combined two-item (economic and social) 7-point
political ideology scale reveals a participant pool balanced around the midpoint (M =
3.5, SD = 1.2; α = .81). Roughly half of the young voters (48%) stated they were mem-
bers of a political party, and the partisans were nearly evenly split between Democrats
and Republicans.

Procedures

The study was conducted over the course of 3 weeks in late March and early April
2004. Participants were informed that they would be taking part in a study dealing
with personal perceptions of television public affairs content, with their first task be-
ing to complete a pretest questionnaire 1 week prior to coming into contact with ex-
perimental media stimuli. The pretest questionnaire asked participants to provide ba-
sic demographic information, to provide responses to a battery of internal political
self-efficacy items, and to specify their existing public affairs television viewing hab-
its. The participants were placed into one of three experimental conditions: The Daily
Show →Traditional TV News, Traditional TV News →The Daily Show, and control
(i.e., no stimulus). Participants were then e-mailed with the date, time, and location
for where they could complete the second and final phase of the study.

Participants were asked to attend one of eight session times over the course of 2
weeks (March 29, 2004–April 1, 2004, or April 5, 2004–April 8, 2004). The first
week’s sessions had participants show up just prior to the live evening viewing (11:00
p.m. EST) of The Daily Show. Participants in these sessions first viewed The Daily
Show and then watched a subsequent real-time half-hour of CNN Headline News.
CNN Headline News was chosen as an example of national television news relative
to the participants for this study for several reasons: (a) A majority of the participants
stated in the pretest questionnaire that either CNN Headline News was their primary
traditional TV news source or all traditional TV news sources were about the same
(50.8%);1 (b) CNN Headlines News has redesigned its format multiple times in recent
years in an attempt to appeal to a younger demographic, achieving some success
through these endeavors (Romano, 2002); and (c) CNN Headline News afforded the
opportunity to provide a live TV viewing experience in the time surrounding the live

Holbert et al./THE DAILY SHOW AND PRIMACY EFFECTS 29

airing of The Daily Show. The participants were asked in the second week’s sessions
to first watch a real-time half-hour of CNN Headline News (10:30–11:00 p.m. EST)
and then the live viewing of that night’s episode of The Daily Show. On completion of
the stimulus phase, each participant filled out a posttest questionnaire. The posttest
phase inquired separately as to the political gratifications associated with national
television news viewing and The Daily Show viewing. The gratifications measures for
the respective forms of television viewing were randomly ordered to reduce response
biases. Prior to each stimulus session a predetermined number of control participants
were escorted to a separate room where they simply completed the posttest question-
naire without coming into contact with any television stimuli.

Design

A 3 (The Daily Show—National TV news vs. National TV news—The Daily Show
vs. control) × 2 (low vs. high internal political self-efficacy) between-subject experi-
mental design was used to address this study’s hypotheses. A mean split was used to
break the internal political self-efficacy variable into the high and low groups. A rela-
tively equal number of participants in the three stimulus conditions completed all
phases of the experiment: The Daily Show as first viewing (n = 68), CNN as first view-
ing (n = 70), and control (n = 63).

Measures

Independent Variable. Internal political self-efficacy is a three-item additive in-
dex consisting of participant responses to the following three statements: (a) Whether
I vote or not has no influence on what politicians do; (b) People like me don’t have
any say about what the government does; and (c) Sometimes government and politics
seem so complicated that a person like me can’t really understand what is going on.
The first two items concern the observable dimension of perceived effectiveness, and
the third item measures perceived competence. Participants were asked to rate their
level of agreement for each statement on 5-point scales ranging from 1 (strongly dis-
agree) to 5 (strongly agree). Responses were recoded to reflect strong internal political
self-efficacy being coded high. This three-item index was created in part to deal with
criticisms concerning the use of just the last of the three items as a measure of internal
political self-efficacy (Neimi et al., 1991; see also Morrell, 2003). The three-item in-
dex proved reliable (M = 3.66, SD = 0.78, α = .70).

Dependent Variables. Reduced four-item political media gratifications scales
were used to create separate dependent variables for national television news view-
ing and The Daily Show viewing (Perse, 1994).2 Participants were presented with the
following directive: “Here is a list of statements that different people have made when
asked why they watch national television news shows that feature political candi-
dates. For each statement on the list, please rate on a 7-point scale how pertinent each

30 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2007

statement is to why you turn to television news shows that feature political candi-
dates. A 1 on this scale reflects a response of not at all pertinent and a 7 reflects a re-
sponse of extremely pertinent.” The same statement was then provided for The Daily
Show political gratifications items, but with “national television news shows that fea-
ture political candidates” from the first sentence of the directive being replaced with
“entertainment television shows that feature political candidates (e.g., The Daily
Show),” and “television news shows that feature political candidates” from the sec-
ond sentence of the directive being replaced with “entertainment television shows
that feature political candidates.” The following set of four statements were provided
to each participant, one relative to national television news consumption and another
relative to The Daily Show: To judge what political leaders are like; To see what a
candidate would do if elected; To keep up with the main issues of the day; and To
help make up my mind how to vote in an election. The two, four-item dependent vari-
able indexes were found to be reliable: national television news (M = 5.1, SD = 1.0, α
= .73) and The Daily Show (M = 3.6, SD = 1.3, α = .85). A paired-sample t test re-
vealed a strong mean difference for The Daily Show and national TV news scales (t =
–15.13, p < .001).

Covariates. Existing viewing habits for both national television news and The
Daily Show were included as covariates to account for previous use of both outlets.
Both TV viewing variables are additive indexes consisting of exposure and attention
measures (Chaffee & Schleuder, 1986). National television news use is a three-item
index, whereas The Daily Show is a two-item additive index. Participants were pro-
vided with the following statement relative to exposure to “national cable television
news” and “national broadcast network news”: “On a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 =
rarely and 7 = all the time how often do you watch the following types of television
news programs? You also have the option of circling 0 = never if you never watch a
particular program type.” The following statement was then offered concerning atten-
tion to national television news in general: “Regardless of how often you come across
stories about national government and politics when watching any form of television
news, how much attention do you pay to these types of stories when you do come
into contact with them? The scale ranges from 1 = little attention to 7 = very close at-
tention, and you have the option of circling 0 = no attention.” The same respective
statements were provided for a single The Daily Show exposure item and a single The
Daily Show attention item. Both indexes are reliable: National TV news viewing (M =
3.5, SD = 1.5, α = .79); The Daily Show (M = 3.6, SD = 1.6, r = .50).3

Analysis

Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to test this study’s hypotheses. The in-
dependent variables reflect the study’s design (i.e., experimental condition and inter-
nal political self-efficacy). The dependent variables are the two political gratifications

Holbert et al./THE DAILY SHOW AND PRIMACY EFFECTS 31

indexes, national television news and The Daily Show. The covariates are preexisting
national television news viewing and preexisting The Daily Show viewing.

Results

Omnibus Effects

Wilks’s Λ was used to assess all omnibus results. Both covariates were found to
have significant influence at the omnibus level: The Daily Show use, F(2, 188) = 4.62,
p < .05, η2 = .05; national TV news use, F(2, 188) = 10.83, p < .001, η2 = .11. The ex-
perimental condition also retains influence at this level, F(4, 376) = 4.60, p < .01, η2 =
.05, but internal political self-efficacy does not have a significant main effect, F(2,
188) = 1.74, p > .15. However, internal political self-efficacy does form a significant
interaction with the experimental condition, F(4, 376) = 3.06, p < .05, η2 = .04.

Univariate Effects

Covariates. The covariates function as expected. Previous The Daily Show use is
found to have a significant main effect for only the political gratifications associated
with The Daily Show viewing, F(1, 189) = 9.28, p < .01, η2 = .05. Past national TV
news viewing has a significant main effect for only the political gratifications associ-
ated with national television news viewing, F(1, 189) = 19.35, p < .001, η2 = .08.

Independent Variables. The first two hypotheses concern the main primacy ef-
fects of The Daily Show viewing versus national television news viewing in varied se-
quences of public affairs television consumption. The experimental stimulus condi-
tion has a main effect on the political gratifications associated with both The Daily
Show viewing, F(2, 189) = 3.46, p < .05, η2 = .04, and national television news view-
ing, F(2, 189) = 5.26, p < .01, η2 = .05. The lowest national television news political
gratifications mean is found with those participants who viewed The Daily Show prior
to CNN Headline News (adjusted M = 4.74), as hypothesized. Thus, there is support
for H1a. Those participants who viewed CNN prior to The Daily Show retained stron-
ger political gratifications associated with national television news than their The
Daily Show →CNN peers (adjusted M = 5.18). Interestingly, the highest political grati-
fications mean for national television news is with the control group (adjusted M =
5.26). It appears that viewing The Daily Show alongside CNN Headline News, no
matter the ordering, makes viewers think less of national television news. However,
the viewing of The Daily Show prior to CNN initiated the primacy effect, which leads
to a further reduction in national television news political gratifications.

The lowest mean for political gratifications associated with The Daily Show view-
ing is for the participants who viewed CNN prior to The Daily Show (adjusted M =

32 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2007

3.29), whereas the group who viewed The Daily Show prior to CNN retained a higher
level of The Daily Show political gratifications (adjusted M = 3.58). As with the find-
ings for the national television news gratifications, the highest mean for The Daily
Show political gratifications can be found among the control group (adjusted M =
3.92). Once again, coming into contact with both CNN and The Daily Show, no mat-
ter the order, leads to a reduction in the perceived political gratifications associated
with The Daily Show viewing. However, the primacy effect stemming from viewing
CNN prior to The Daily Show leads to a further reduction in The Daily Show political
gratifications. These findings support H1b.

The Experimental Condition × Internal Political Self-Efficacy interaction is found to
influence the political gratifications associated with national television news viewing,
F(2, 189) = 5.84, p < .01, η2 = .06. A plotting of the interaction reveals that the low
internal political self-efficacy group that first came into contact with The Daily Show
reported weaker political gratifications associated with national television news
viewing relative to the other five experimental condition and self-efficacy group com-
binations (adjusted M = 4.23; see Figure 1). The high internal political self-efficacy
participants who viewed The Daily Show prior to CNN retain a similar level of politi-
cal gratifications associated with national television news (adjusted M = 5.19) as the
participants in the CNN →The Daily Show and control conditions (adjusted Ms =
5.13–5.38). These results reveal the primacy effect of The Daily Show relative to na-
tional television news political gratifications to be isolated among those participants
who do not feel they are personally empowered in the political process. Moderator
variables answer the question of when an effect takes place (Baron & Kenny, 1986),
and the when of The Daily Show primacy effect is with those viewers who are low in
internal political self-efficacy. In short, watching The Daily Show prior to CNN leads
those individuals with low internal political self-efficacy to think less of national tele-
vision news as a source for political information. Thus, there is support for H2a. There
is no interaction effect between the experimental stimulus condition and internal po-
litical self-efficacy for the gratifications associated with The Daily Show viewing, F(2,
189) = 0.99, p > .35. Thus, H2b is rejected.

Discussion

The satirical eye of The Daily Show is focused squarely on the practice of U.S. jour-
nalism. Like other forms of satire, The Daily Show is “unabashedly didactic” (Bloom
& Bloom, 1979, p. 16), and this is especially true when it comes to the overriding
message the show communicates about the dysfunctional state of national television
news. Entertainment-based political outlets like The Daily Show not only have the
ability to generate effects on the dependent variables traditionally studied in the field
of political communication (e.g., vote likelihood, political knowledge, issue sa-
lience), but can also affect individual-level perceptions of traditional political com-
munication information outlets (e.g., national television news). As a result, political

Holbert et al./THE DAILY SHOW AND PRIMACY EFFECTS 33

Figure 1
Experimental Primacy Condition × Internal Self-Efficacy Interaction

for National TV News

communication scholarship needs to adopt a two-prong strategy for studying emerg-
ing entertainment-based political information outlets like The Daily Show.

One front consists of introducing The Daily Show alongside the traditional political
communication information sources most commonly studied in the field (e.g., talk ra-
dio, debate viewing, political advertising, newspaper use). This approach will pro-
vide knowledge on how The Daily Show stacks up relative to those types of media use
most commonly associated with the study of political communication. A second front
would focus on how the consumption of programming like The Daily Show functions
in coordination with more traditional forms of public affairs media use. This approach
will provide greater understanding on how various types of media use (entertainment
and public affairs) relate to one another in producing a broad range of effects. Addi-
tional insights would also be offered as to how consumption patterns of various types
of political information outlets mutually affect citizens’ perceptions of the outlets’ util-
ity as political information sources. This study focuses on the latter front of the broader
strategy.

In particular, this study uses the primacy effect as a basis from which to begin a sys-
tematic analysis of how the combined use of The Daily Show and national television
news shapes or alters individual-level perceptions of each outlet. The primacy effect
of The Daily Show leads to weaker levels of political gratifications associated with na-
tional television news. However, this message order influence is conditional, with the
effect being isolated among those participants who are low in internal political

34 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/March 2007

self-efficacy. It appears those individuals who perceive themselves to be politically
incompetent and ineffective become especially attached to the satirical message of
The Daily Show and what it has to say about national television news. As a result, this
study poses an important empirical question for future research: Does viewing The
Daily Show lead those who already feel detached from the political process to poten-
tially forgo the use of political information outlets that have been shown to aid in
knowledge acquisition and political engagement? Several studies have shown televi-
sion news to provide tangible benefits for citizens (Chaffee, Zhao, & Leshner, 1994;
Zhao & Chaffee, 1995). Whether The Daily Show should be embraced as a new form
of journalism that has the potential to replace or reform more traditional forms of jour-
nalism is open to debate (e.g., Baym, 2005). However, it is clear that The Daily Show
appears to have a unique influence on those viewers who are low in internal political
self-efficacy. Indeed, Baumgartner and Morris (2006) pointed to self-efficacy being an
important variable in understanding the varied influences of The Daily Show, and this
individual-difference variable should remain central in analyzing The Daily Show
within a conditional model of media influence (McLeod & Reeves, 1980). There is a
primacy effect for national television news viewing on perceptions of the political
gratifications associated with The Daily Show. Thus, it is not simply the case that The
Daily Show as a new political information outlet can affect perceptions of a more tra-
ditional political outlet, but that standard forms of news use can influence perceptions
of The Daily Show as well.

This study also raises the issue of the need to better understand the political gratifi-
cations associated with entertainment-based forms of political media use. Just as an
argument has been made for the necessity of studying the political uses and gratifica-
tions of new forms of mass communication (Kaye & Johnson, 2002), the discipline
should also begin a systematic analysis of the political gratifications associated with
new types of political content being presented through traditional media forms. Al-
though the combined use of The Daily Show and national television news impacts the
relative movement of political gratifications associated with each outlet, it is clear that
The Daily Show does not retain the same overall strength of political gratifications as
national television news. The means for the previous media viewing covariates used
in this study point to the participant pool consuming The Daily Show and national
television news in equal amounts, but the national television news political gratifica-
tions mean for the participant pool as a whole is much higher than The Daily Show
political gratifications mean (paired-sample t test, t = –15.26, p < .001). This study fo-
cused only on the political gratifications associated with The Daily Show and national
television news, but future lines of research should analyze specific measures of polit-
ical media gratifications sought and obtained from various types of entertain-
ment-based political media consumption.

Future research on the relations between various forms of entertainment- and pub-
lic-affairs-based political media use should seek to identify effects that are more long
term in nature. Short-term effects provide a solid foundation for initiating a research
agenda, but the ultimate goal should be the identification of influences that last for

Holbert et al./THE DAILY SHOW AND PRIMACY EFFECTS 35

longer periods of time. In addition, this study focused on the perceptual level, but the
study of media gratifications is intricately linked to analyses of behaviors (i.e., media
use). Future research should advance along the hierarchy of effects to assess the be-
havioral outcomes associated with the combined use of The Daily Show and more
traditional political information outlets. Most important, political communication re-
search should continue to study how the use of emerging entertainment-based forms
of political communication work with the consumption of traditional outlets like na-
tional television news to produce a variety of effects. This study is an analysis of the
primacy effects produced through varied consumptions patterns of The Daily Show
and national television news, but the broader message of this work is a call for the dis-
cipline to not study entertainment and public affairs content in relative isolation.

Notes

1All other major TV newscasts were chosen by far fewer participants than CNN Headline
News (each less than 10% of total responses). Additional analyses were run to look at those par-
ticipants who chose CNN as their most frequently used television news source. The
dummy-coded variable was not found to have a significant main effect on either dependent vari-
able.

2Exploratory factor analyses (EFAs; Principle Axis, Direct OBLIMIN) were conducted on the
full eight-item political gratifications scale for national television news viewing and The Daily
Show viewing, respectively. The separate factor analyses were run to reduce data in an effort to
create identical political gratifications indexes for the two types of viewing. The two EFAs re-
vealed divergent loadings across national television viewing and The Daily Show viewing. The
four items used to form the respective political gratifications dependent variables in this study
were the strongest loading and most consistent items found in both EFAs. The four items utilized
in these analyses form a single factor for national television news viewing and The Daily Show
viewing, respectively. This was not true of the other four items listed by Perse (1994), either for
national television news viewing and/or The Daily Show viewing.

3The following are the zero-order correlations between the study’s covariates and dependent
variables: preexisting television news use–preexisting The Daily Show use, r = .20, p < .01; pre-
existing television news use–national television news viewing gratifications, r = .35, p < .001;
preexisting television news use–The Daily Show viewing gratifications, r = .03, ns; preexisting
The Daily Show use–national television news viewing gratifications, r = .11, ns; preexisting The
Daily Show use–The Daily Show viewing gratifications, r = .18, p < .05; national television news
viewing gratifications–The Daily Show viewing gratifications, r = .32, p < .001.

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