Comedy as a Gateway
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Late-Night Comedy as a Gateway to Traditional News:
An Analysis of Time Trends in News Attention among Late-Night Comedy Viewers during
the 2004 Presidential Primaries
Abstract
This paper challenges the assumption, advanced in recent survey data published by the
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, that young audiences are abandoning
traditional news as a source of election information in favor of late-night comedy programs.
Instead, we offer evidence, consistent with Baum’s “gateway” hypothesis (2003), that exposure
to late-night comedy increases attention paid to the presidential campaign in national network
and cable news. Insofar as campaign news provides the context for the political jokes featured in
late-night comedy monologues, late-night television appears to serve a socializing function, such
that it motivates viewers to pay more focused attention to the campaign in hard news sources—
perhaps so that they feel better equipped to enjoy the comedy. This analysis uses data collected
via the National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) during the 2004 presidential primary
season, between October 30, 2003 and June 4, 2004. As hypothesized, cross-sectional results
demonstrate that viewers of late-night comedy pay more attention to the campaign in national
and network cable news than non-viewers, controlling for a variety of factors. Time series
analysis also reveals that the rate of increase in hard news attention over the course of the
primary season is greater for viewers of late-night comedy than for non-viewers.
Convention