I don't know if I had ever mentioned Ohio State University in a post before yesterday, but here we are with another story coming out of Columbus.
It might shock you, but it didn't surprise me a bit.
Writing on the Huffington Post, blogger Jason Linkins reported on an OSU study about political humor and how people at different ends of the political spectrum react to it. In particular, how they reacted to Comedy Central's wonderful satire on Bill O'Reilly, The Colbert Report.
According to the study,
"This study investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology on perceptions of Stephen Colbert. Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguous political messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. "Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert's political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion."
It makes sense to me.
After all, conservatives don't have much to laugh about since "Amos and Andy" was cancelled.
Editor's note: Mike, they're going to call you an arrogant bastard again.
Yeah, I suppose I'd better walk that one back a little.
I actually don't think folks on the far right or the far left have much of a sense of humor. I've always been told that there is one clear way to judge if someone has a sense of humor, and that's if they can laugh at themself.
As far as I know, neither Keith Olbermann or O'Reilly are real good at that.
I do feel for the folks in the OSU survey, though.
It's hell to live in a world where you never get the joke.
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3 comments:
"I've always been told that there is one clear way to judge if someone has a sense of humor, and that's if they can laugh at themself."
Where did you learn grammar?
My God, man, no wonder you get abuse.
Someone is singular. It does not indicate gender.
They is the plural pronoun -- again, non-specific.
Themself is not a word.
You just made a ginormous mistake.
;)
Actually, not so much.
I wouldn't have written it that way, but I was trying to be politically correct and not say "himself."
Of course, I could have been schoolmarmish and said "oneself," but that would have been silly.
Mistake? Maybe, but hardly a big one.
In the eyes of the reader, I guess.
You're intelligent, so write as if you are.
Frank
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