Is Stephen Colbert a conservative or a liberal? Depends on who’s watching …
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I love hearing antecdotal evidence of people talking about their uncle or neighbor who watches ‘The Colbert Report’ because “Stephen understands how we conservatives think!” But to see it studied scientifically is quite interesting. From Miller-McCune.com (emphasis added):
The Truthiness of The Colbert Report …
… Is in the eyes of the beholder, who, it turns out, sees what the beholder wants its eyes to see.
By: Lee Drutman | April 20, 2009 | 09:51 AM (PDT)So … Stephen Colbert doesn’t really mean all those wacky liberal-bashing things he says, does he? Comedy Central’s ‘The Colbert Report’ is obviously a parody of a wing-nut right-wing talk show. Right?
Or … is it? (Cut to devilishly quizzical chin-grabbing stare.)
…
In order to test this scientifically, Heather L. LaMarre, along with Kristen D. Landreville and Michael A. Beam (all communications doctoral students at The Ohio State University), subjected 322 participants with a mix of political ideologies to a three-minute 2006 video clip of Stephen Colbert discussing media coverage of the Iraq war with “super liberal lefty” radio host Amy Goodman.
They then asked participants to evaluate Colbert’s ideology and his attitude towards liberalism. What they found was that the more liberal participants reported their own ideology to be, the more liberal they thought Colbert was. And the more conservative they reported their own ideology to be, the more conservative they thought Colbert was. Both, however, found him equally funny. The results are published in the April edition of the International Journal of Press/Politics.
“Liberals will see him as an over-the-top satire of Bill O’Reilly-type pundit and think that he is making fun of a conservative pundit,” LaMarre explained. “But conservatives will say, yes, he is an over-the-top satire of Bill O’Reilly, but by being funny he gets to make really good points and make fun of liberals. So they think the joke is on liberals.”
How can this be? Are they really both watching the same Stephen Colbert? Actually, the reason is pretty simple. It is a phenomenon that has been familiar to social psychologists for a long time: confirmation bias. “When you look at social psychology and you see how people process information, people see what they want to see,” said study co-author Landreville. “They take whatever they want out of that message. So if I’m a liberal, I’ll have my liberal goggles on when I’m watching The Colbert Report and I’ll think he’s a liberal.”
All I know is that I don’t think of Stephen as a Conservative or a Liberal. I think of him as a comedian. But this study is quite an interesting perspective on the leanings of the viewers of the show.
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16 Comments
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Hahahaha, I was JUST going to post this when I refreshed the screen and saw it here! Great minds and all that jazz …
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April 23rd, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Ohio State represent!! They make me proud by studying the important things.
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April 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Wow…this is really interesting. Darn I wish I could have read this a few days ago. A friend asked me if Colbert was really satirizing conservative shows or if he really meant the things he said. Wish I could have linked to this.
I mean, I don’t assume that Stephen means a lot of the things he says, simply because the whole concept of a great of his ideas are insane. Plus he wouldn’t let his kids watch his show for a while because he didn’t want them to think he doesn’t mean anything he says. Still, I think it’s good that we really don’t know much of his standpoint on anything. It keeps his character believable. Plus, I don’t watch the Report to develop any opinions…I watch it for joy.
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April 23rd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Stephen says in an NPR interview from years ago, pre-Report, that when Jon took over The Daily Show and asked them to do more political material, Stephen was surprised to find out how liberal he really was. There’s also an Air America interview where he goes as far as pushing some Cheney conspiracy theory. I don’t think this is a subject of debate.
You can find a handful of instances where Stephen is actually leaning to the right and agreeing with his character, I’m sure. But the vast, vast majority of it is straight-up satire. If you’re reading his take on say, torture, as sympathetic, you’re delusional.
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April 23rd, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Oh, and I left out the other major category of Report humor, where it’s just Stephen poking fun at everyone in an apolitical way: clap clap point point, Nancy Pelosi blinking, etc.
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April 24th, 2009 at 6:02 am
Yes! Exactly!
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April 23rd, 2009 at 3:05 pm
as a former psych major, i would say that most of these studies point to the same thing; you tend to believe what you want to believe, in spite of the facts. one of things i like about colbert and tcr is he is not wedded to some kind of ideology. i think the reason rachel maddow’s ratings are slipping,for example, is in part because you can almost predict what the commentator will say.
it is definitely safe to say that we do not always know what stephen will think or say on any given topic. and usually there is something unexpected, like running mascara or snot or removal of clothing or something.
also, i am loving @stephenathome tweets. it is like having a cathy calendar or something on your desk, always something whimsical and cute to check while you are working.
:)
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April 23rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
HA! Love your description of Stephen’s fun tweets. It’s like getting a mini-Report all day!
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April 23rd, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I think Stephen’s a wonderful hybrid of the two, though he defintely has more liberal leanings. You definitely see a conservative streak now and then when it comes to religion. Remember the wonderful exchange between himself and Dr. Zimbardo? “I’m a Sunday teacher motherf******.” Actuallly, that sentence is a beautiful example of this hybrid since he swears yet talks about being a Sunday school teacher at the same time. Of course, he didn’t use a religious-based swear word:P
Interestingly, I’ve noticed that TCR has remained relatively quiet on the issue of abortion and I wonder if Stephen has somewhat conservative leanings on this subject, but I may be wrong. I don’t want to start some fiery debate here. Just an observation.
Since he grew up in a Republican household and still has many siblings who are Republicans, this probably adds another dimension to his character.
Whatever the case, Stephen is a wonderful man! How could anyone not love him?!
Whatever the case
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April 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Stephen likes to say in interviews that 99% of the time, he doesn’t agree with the political views of his character and that 1% of the time he does, we’d never even realize it. I also seem to remember him saying he is a registered democrat, so we KNOW he’s satirizing the Papa Bears of the world because they’re nuts.
I’m sure Stephen is as complex a person as anybody can guess, leaning right or left depending on the issue at hand, not really married to either side, but only to what he finds moral and ethical. And I’m sure that’s one big reason why we love him so much.
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April 23rd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Yeah, and all of this is made doubly more confusing by the fact that he plays a character, and we all know that he slips in and out of character sometimes on the show.
I seem to remember from the interview at Harvard he said something like, “I don’t have a problem with Republicans. I just have a problem with Republican policies.” So we have a few hints obviously. But like a lot of us here, I’m pretty sure his political views are a lot more sophisticated than just “conservative” or “liberal.” You don’t do political satire for this long and not develop that.
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April 23rd, 2009 at 9:05 pm
” “I don’t have a problem with Republicans. I just have a problem with Republican policies.” ”
That sounds an awful lot like the classic Christian evangelical mantra “hate the sin, not the sinner.”
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April 24th, 2009 at 9:20 am
I also remember an interview he had with Ralph Nader when he was hosting an episode of the Daily Show. Stephen said that he is a democrat, and that he planned to vote for John Kerry.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=126406&title=Ralph-Nader
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April 23rd, 2009 at 5:52 pm
In the 1970s there was a show called “All in the Family”. Archie (conservative) was constantly arguing politics with Meathead/”son in law” (liberal). A poll was taken, to who was winning the arguements. Liberals believed that Meathead was the winner; conservaties believed tahtAchie was was the winner.
Great post on confirmation bias!
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April 23rd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Now there’s “Truthiness” at its best.
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April 24th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
I have to admit, when I first watched the show, Stephen characterization was so believable, I got really ticked off, ’cause he reminded me too much of Papa Bear & the like. I had to keep reminding myself, “This IS Comedy Central! This IS Comedy Central!”
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