The paper, “Research Note: Negative News and Late-Night Comedy about Presidential Candidates,” by Jody Baumgartner, Jonathan Morris and S. Robert Lichter has been accepted for publication in Humor.
The paper explores the creation of jokes told on late night talk shows targeted at major party nominees for president from 1992-2008. The working assumption is that the number of jokes told about candidates are related to variations in polling numbers, mainstream media coverage, and party identification of the candidates. Results show a positive relationship between the number of jokes told at a candidate’s expense and the amount of negative news coverage about the candidate. In addition, Republicans are targeted with more frequency than Democrats. Results suggest that favorability ratings and whether or not a presidential candidate is an incumbent has no effect on the number of jokes targeting a candidate.
