Future Directions for Political Comedy Research
Now out in the latest edition of the National Communication Association's Communication Currents newsletter is an essay I've written with my colleague, Don Waisanen , about our recent review of the state of political comedy research. The essay translates our recent article published in Review of Communication where we focus on defining the current boundaries of political comedy research. We discuss how research focuses primarily on comedy's features (e.g., things like comedy's devices and conventions, ideological and ethical functions, and contributions to public affairs and civic discourse) and the effects of exposure to this entertaining content (e.g., key outcomes like knowledge and learning, attitudes, and political engagement). The piece also reviews recent work on how viewers process, interpret, develop an affinity for, and come to understand political comedy content. In the second half of the piece, we work to bridge the features and effects divide by offeri...