Ohio study finds conservatives believe that Stephen Colbert dislikes liberalism
By John Amato Tuesday Apr 28, 2009 3:30pm
Ohio State University did a study on The Colbert Report and found something very interesting.
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.
As the Political Wire put it: Many Conservatives Don't Think Colbert is Joking
I guess they really do live in an alternate reality.
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1. social conservatives are stupid.
2. Colbert is really good at what he does.
Every self identified "conservative" I know is pretty humor challenged.
Irony is lost on the 30 percenters.
But in a hilarious way it explains a lot.
Ya, finally we understand who has been holding america back.
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
John Stuart Mill
I bet Republicans are mentally challanged in a well understood clinical way. It's important to never give them the reins of power.
While not all reich wingnuts are morons, all morons seem to be reich wingnuts.
All reich wingnuts are socially developmentally challanged.
almost all conservatives are ruled by fear. It's hard to laugh when you are afraid of everything.
Also, it is hard to see things clearly when you head is up your own butt all the time.
: )
Shows the low mentality, lack of education and no common sense of Reslugs.
Right wingers tend to be really, really stupid..
Their idea of humor are gay bashing jokes- so something more intellectual goes right over their heads..
Maybe he'd target anyone who'd use a dishonest argument.
Its not about conservatives not thinking its funny. Its about thinking Colbert isn't making fun of them.
it's why they can only "look forward"
are inevitably the ones who smugly suggest "we don't get it". Sweet, sweet irony.
Free. Dumb.
Anyway, it's not just conservatives who can't understand satire.
Here in PHX AZ a small number of leftists at our antiwar rallies thought that
Billionaires for Bush were actually for Bush.
Though I think that more conservatards are clueless to humor.
It really does figure.
They wouldn't even believe us if we told them 'the truth'...or if we replayed to them some early 'Daily Show' tapes where Colbert got his big break.
Nope...we are the 'librul media'...those 'hippie-bloggers', who are out to 'socialize' America.
Wondering if this study was done across the U.S. or mainly in Ohio.
My experience in the States (OMG, I'm a 'socialist' Canadian!) is quite limited...lived in Louisville, Ky. way back when & travelled through & stayed over at times, in Michigan, Ohio & Pennsylvania.
My wondering is because in those limited travels, along with the three years living in Louisville, the times I felt the most uncomfortable & 'judged' was in Ohio.
I also used to wonder when I was a youngster & a teen, why we always saw so many (a huge percentage) Ohio licence plates in Ontario's cottage country...all the time! I used to, really, wonder if Ohio folks really just didn't like being at home!
Colbert must be in his glory right now...what an amazing talent he is!
Isamsa is right. You can't make them see the truth. It's not just that they are in denial, but that their brains are incapable of it.
Someone on a liberal forum posted the question "Do they think we're stupid?" after a particularly inane claim by the Bush administration. I pointed out to her that Bush/Cheney don't think YOU are stupid. Only the peo0ple who voted for them.
But Cheney is learning that "You can't fool ALL of the people ALL of the time."
Trust me, people in cities like Columbus (where I live) tend to be liberal and smart. As soon as you leave the city limits, you run into a brick wall of stupid.
While not all reich wingnuts are morons, all morons seem to be reich wingnuts
These are the same people that listen to Rush, Hannity and O'Reilly and think they're hearing the truth too. Nuff said.
When I used to amuse myself by posting on conservative forums, I learned the futility of argument by analogy. They took things very literally.
They are not necessarily stupid, and many are educated, but they think (react) simply. Like a bull going after the red cape, not seeing the matador with his sword.
They tend to be oblivious not only to to irony and metaphor, but also to nuance and complexity. And the simple solution to a complex problem always creates worse problems.
And that's what got us to this time and place. And it's the reason Obama's attempts at bipartisanship were doomed to failure.
They never scratch the surface of any thought.
It explains why they vote the way they do as well. And why they are always so upset and in denial when their "heroes" have some huge scandal, like diddling young boys, or getting busted with drugs.
they can be extremely dangerous, like KKKarl Rove and Limbaugh. They KNOW they can twist things a certain way and get the fundies-righties all sirred up over no big deal, or something that isn't even true. Remember when Obama went around to the schools? All he was doing was talking with the kids and the right-wing propaganda machine said he was like Hitler, spreading his "socialist" agenda. Which of course didn't make any sense, but the dittoheads ate it up.
Funny how it died down and quietly went away when the "liberal media" showed Obama speaking to the students and he was doing no such thing.
Guess it goes to show you just how gullible and stupid most conservatives/Republicans are. Is it any wonder they are so susceptible to the kind of propaganda spewed out constantly by right wing media?
Repugs lack a vital skill, "critical thinking". I think it's in a persons DNA to be a repug.
So what else is new ? The truth is a lie and the lie is the truth , black is white and white is black in the world of todays right wing "conservatives " , their two virtues are lying and greed . If you want the truth you can usually take the exact opposite of what these lunatics say and there you have it , that is no exaggeration . By the way , Arlen Spector , welcome !
Too much. Where do these people live? It must be awful to be that stupid.
I had a lover like Colbert. I'm sure most people didn't "get it" until the next day (scratching heads). We had great fun at parties!!!!!!!!
Didn't we kind of have a hint about this when Colbert was invited to speak at the press club dinner where he reamed bush.
Oh my god, the results of this study are just pitiful and should embarrass everyone who calls themselves a conservative.
I guess they think that last night he really ate a panda head sandwich.
He obviously left his previous job to get away from that crazy lefty Jon Daily. His show is Comedy Central's balance to the Daily Show and follows it so a true Conservative could get the last word.
Fair and balanced. I only worry that he may be French with a name like that.
Well bless their pea pickin’ little hearts.
I read asomewhere on the internet when southerners say, "Well bless their little heart!" It actually means, "What a dumb-ass!" Now when I hear that phrase it just cracks me up! In fact everything they say cracks me up! Actually it's SAD, come to think of it.
I just finished reading the paper... and besides the regression modeling and the rest of the dry statistical analysis, it is a really interesting paper.
Here's the contextual example they used:
The major finding was Conservatives and Liberals found Colbert equally funny and attributed this to his style of deadpan humor. I wish everyone could read it.
telling portion of the questioning that they (conservatives) should get but don't was, "What can a person like me do to help that will in no way inconvenience me?" If you can't see the deprecating humor in that, well.... I always have to remember that these are the people that claim Rush is an entertainer.
Countdown getting ready to cover this.
Would be if Rush Limbaugh has been conducting a 25 year joke on the ditto-heads.
M-O-N-E-Y! Keep the mouth breathers worked up and tuning in.
Or laughing really hard at this.
This proves how stupid American's are becoming. There's a story on Rawstory.com about people using Google searching for 'swine flue.'
Most of the time, beyond my own perceptions, I can safely distance myself from those people who 'do not care about animals' & those who do not 'get' Monty Python.
Yes, absurd & petty as it sounds...most people I've met who fall into those two categories, are usually of a conservative bent.
hi ho...
But I'm not dead yet!
You'll be dead in a minute...
Thump!
You're not fooling anyone you know...
Right, see you next Thursday then...
Bring out your dead...
Thanks for the laughs! Way too many lines are going through my head at this moment...Python overload!!!!
he's asleep!
The parrot, that is.
Animals + Monty Python, for you..
my son is 15 and he's a real challenge, he's a pretty good kid, but he's obstinate and argumentative. But he's also cool, he plays jazz guitar, he loves Miles Davis and Voltaire and he really, really loves Monty Python. I bought him "The Holy Grail," on a whim and he loved it. That upped his cool factor seriously quickly. It takes a special person to get Python humor and you do have to pay attention and think.
and it helps you to think with both sides of your brain, due to having to use both hands(duh). Throw singing into the mix, and DANG you have a near genius. When you see an accomplished musician, they have really had to work at it and exercise their brains a LOT. I used to watch Roy Clark on "Hee Haw" and think, "What a hick!" But man he could play and sing. He turned out to be a pretty smart hick!
Once they elected the Ultimate Moron, geedubya, they made it clear to the rest of the world they are not worthy of respect. Thanks Colbert for putting them in their place, I don't watch your show but I'm glad it makes a worthwhile statement.
This furthers our body of understanding regarding how individuals perceive the beliefs of others. Further research is still needed to determine whether or not Conservatives believe Jonathan Swift supported eating Irish children.
you know they did.
Conservatives aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. Nothing we didn't already know.
Probably explains why they are continually voting against their own best interest.
I agree on both points.
What a perfect illustration of the ignorance of the right wingers.
It's like reading the comments on Jon Swifts Blog. There are buyers to be had. Even if you are selling the craziest stuff on earth.
Maybe he wants rightards to think he's serious when in actuality he is not serious but then if he's not serious why does everyone take him so seriously?
Ouch! Better get a beer and turn on Fox.
When Colbert lampooned him at that dinner.
That was the one where Rove was dancing with David Gregory.
Boosh didn't look to happy with Colbert that night.
You could see the gear grinding away in boosh's head.
This gives stupid a whole new meaning. File under GOPer.
Look it up - the dance with Karl and Gregory was a year later.
But Bush really didn't look happy most of the time - unless he was thinking of torturing someone.
was at the Radio Broadcasters Correspondence dinner.
Colbert ripped Bush at the Washington Press Corp dinner 4/9/06
Thanks for the correction.
are all mercifully blending together into one ugly memory...
"Because high levels of cognitive effort are required to determine the satirist’s intention and true meaning, it makes satirical uptake a complicated process..."
So, one must have intelligence to understand satire.
Like others, I thought people knew Colbert was critical of conservatives the moment he did the White House Correspondents dinner and lampooned Bush, Cheney, Rove, et. al.
Cognitive effort =/ intelligence. This simply means that it requires work to comprehend satire. If, for whatever reason, that work is not, or cannot be, completed, you are likely to mistakenly attribute the professed attitudes to the individual (regardless of if you correctly categorize the behavior as "satire").
Remember Archie Bunker?
My parents and many goopers just adored him. Not realizing that he was the butt of the jokes, and that Carol O'Connor, bless him, was a devout liberal.
The journal article actually discusses the character of Archie Bunker in the lit. review and discussion section of the article. An earlier study that focused on that character found similar results to the current study on Colbert.
...And the All In The Family writing staff. There were a lot of committed liberals working on that show. O'Connor wasn't improvising, ya know! ;D
Colbert's show is on COMEDY CENTRAL! It is not on CNN, MSNBC or even Fox. It's on a COMEDY CHANNEL, you morons!!!
There's something about how the conservative brain works that makes it unable to detect irony.
At first I thought maybe I was just being cynical, but then Al Franken made the same point in one of his books. Conservatives are extremely LITERAL in their reading and hearing of everything.
Year or so ago, guy at work was telling me he liked Colbert. This confused me because I know he's conservative. When I said I was surprised and explained why, he kind of smiled and nodded and said "yeah, that's what he *wants* you to think."
I thought he was just nuts. Well, he is...I guess I didn't realize there were more nuts like him.
Generally speaking, the conservative sense of humor is limited to slapstick, or jokes that are racist, sexist or homophobic. They are incapable of recognizing or appreciating comedic forms like irony and satire.
This also explains why you will find so few conservatives among the world's great artists, musicians, actors, writers and comics. Practically by definition conservatives are not creative.
Go ahead - Name a conservative comic. (Dennis Miller doesn't qualify. He's not funny.)
Understanding and seeing through satire requires a perception of nuances. So when you deal with people who can't comprehend nuances in the world around them, and are basicly judging things by their superficial appearance, it's given that they can't comprehend the nuances or depth in an act on TV.
They do tend to think in concrete, black-white terms, so guess it makes sense that satire goes over their heads, especially since they're the ones being ridiculed. What a convenient defense mechanism.
There's really a very simple reason why right-wingers think Colbert dislikes liberals:
Conservatives look at the world through nut-job-colored glasses.
Libruls...who have don't get it.
I know a Lot of people who think that South Park is very right leaning, and that the movie Team America was a right leaning movie..Not getting that the "Patriots" in that movie were a bunch of dullards, and only seeing the "criticism" of the "Hollywood Left".
To paraphrase what Stan said on one of the episodes a while back....You either have to make fun of everything...or nothing.
I don't always think the South Park is funny either...but I do think they are probably one of the MOST fair and balanced shows on Television. They do make fun of everything with equal vigor.
I love South Park. I don't love it all the time, but I think that they have made fun of just about everything and everyone. Parker and Stone are seriously full of shit, though. My son and I were watching the episode wherein Cartman is trying to get Family Guy pulled off the air because they were going to show Mohammed. Now, I am not a Family Guy fan, I just don't think it's very funny, but Parker and Stone while doing the commentary for the episode were running on and on about how the writing wasn't good and it was gimmicky and as they kept bagging on Family Guy, I said to my son, "you realize these guys are seriously full of shit, right?"
Having said all of that, I do still enjoy their shows, I just wish they would bring back Starvin' Marvin and Big Gay Al.
of themselves and their place in the culture....A little humility would be more attractive.
I'm not a big Family Guy fan either, there are parts of it that are funny, and I understand completely that Seth McFarlane is making fun of the culture just as Parker and Stone are..but in a different way.
Love Big Gay Al...
DOES have some really funny bits, and occasionally a whole episode is really good. Check out the one where Peter looks up his Irish ancestry and goes to the "Irish Museum". Priceless! http://www.hulu.com/family-guy
The irony challenged are legion and nuance is lost on them. See it all over every day.
Ohio study finds conservatives believe that Stephen Colbert dislikes liberalism and they also believe that the Kool-aid is SAAAAAWEET.
are all anal retentive, tight assed,unbendable assholes and whatever is said to them or about them goes way the fuck over their fucked up heads!
conservatives have the uncanny ability to not be able to read between the lines, like most normal folks! In other words, conservatives are IDIOTS!
Or would be if it weren't so sad.
Wow. Them is some stupid Cons.
We didn't need any scientific studies to find out that rightards are morons. Intellectually they rank much, much lower than Democrats -- as well as morally and ethicalally.
It's true that most fundamental religionists are under-educated, regardless of religion, it is also true that most fundamental conservatives lack the critical thinking abilities required to discern criticism, even when it makes fun of them.
It's sad that most low-income white folks in the south are republican; they are, in effect, voting against their own best interests. I wonder how many lost their jobs due to the disasterous bush regime? Tragic, really.
Makes it more understandable why Glenn Beck has the audience he has.
I can handle the petty political arguments, the name-calling, and the ridiculous "arguments" conservatives spew, but the thing that is bad about "conservatives" is that they really don't care if people suffer and die as long as "I have mine (so go f*ck yourself)", and they MEAN it. They say "bomb Iran, in fact nuke the whole middle east" and they MEAN IT, not realizing (or, maybe they do) that Israel is part of the middle east. A lot of this attitude began with Reagan, the "me" president who was one actually one of the WORST presidents, but of course whom the "conservatives" think was one of the best. It would make great black humor if it weren't true.
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