Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This is an experimental study looking at how candidate appearances on late night television talk shows affect the relative saliency of image considerations in candidate evaluations and vote choices.

Publication Type: Proceeding
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.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, I offer an examination of original White House documents regarding the appearance of White House press secretary Ron Nessen as the guest host of Saturday Night Live in April, 1976; detail the impact of Saturday Night Live's treatment of the Ford Presidency on the campaign of 1976; and investigate the reasons for Saturday Night Live's producers' and writers' decision to treat Ford as they did. The paper includes an experimental study to measure the impact of Saturday Night Live's debate sketches on audience perceptions of the candidates' perfomances in the real 1976 debates, which were the first televised debates since 1960.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper will explore how television comedy shows (Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, the Tonight Show and the Late Show) affected the 2008 Presidential Election Race. Due to the writers strike these shows were dark during the early primary races – leaving an intriguing void in the media coverage of the race. After the strike was settled, the coverage of the race seemed to change as did popular perception of the candidates. Saturday Night Live is getting high ratings based on its political skits and candidates seek out any opportunity to be a guest on a nightly show. Studies have shown that younger voters are getting their news more from Jon Stewart than from Brian Williams which means that these sketches and appearances have a great effect on how the public views the candidates and the election. This paper intends to consider these effects in the hopes of determining how much of an impact these shows have on the election and its results

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: While most studies of urban nightlife focus on patrons, this analysis focuses on the employees of the nightclub industry. This articles draws on over five years of experience in and two years of ethnographic research at Narcisse: a restaurant/club/lounge which is both unique and yet representative of the nightlife industry of Chicago. This study draws out the temporal peculiarities of the occupation, the specific occupational orientation - one that defies traditional occupational logic by emphasizing the greater importance of symbolic and social capital rather than economic compensation, and finally how traditional occupational status and hierarchies neglect how certain jobs have particular status within a particular idioculture as opposed to the dominant culture. In doing so, this study offers insight into urban sociology by exploring the internal workings of the post-industrial hybrid of the service economy and the culture industry generalized herein as the leisure industry, and how specific occupations and occupational roles are always embedded in larger cultural frameworks.