The Effects of Satire: Exploring Its Impact on Political Candidate Evaluation

Abstract

The relationships between satire, truth, today's mainstream news provision and opinion shaping are often fluid. Since satire can tell the truth to power, the significance of the role assumed by satirists when doing so increases in the absence of other individuals and institutions making such critiques. Even when other critical voices are present, an important question is what effect (if any) this kind of truth-telling satire has. The most accessible examples for studying this are provided by occasions when satirists either make an overt call-to-action to their audience (often to engage in the traditional political process or to protest); or become involved in what is recognisably traditional political action or other involvement in the political process; or when politicians and leaders themselves voluntarily appear in the context of satirical content. 1 Considering the first two types of example, the apparent effects of contemporary satire on its audiences have been widely noted in the USA in relation to specific satirical television programmes. TIME Magazine described the "John Oliver Effect": the process whereby political action seemed to result from or be inspired by investigative segments aired on the