Shooting the messenger?

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars, I find this Washington Post article about the effect of the Daily Show on attitudes towards politics and politicians. The article reports on the results of a published study that found that people who watch the Daily Show regularly are more likely to be cynical about politics. The authors of the study (and the author of the WaPo piece) conclude that this is a Bad Thing, because, "negative perceptions of candidates could have participation implications by keeping more youth from the polls."

The WaPo article, with it's uncritical recitation of the study's findings sparked my interest enough to get me to go read the actual journal article. Interestingly, it appears that the actual article doesn't actually suport that speculation with a lot of evidence.

The article in question actually didn't bother to ask if, after watching the video clips, the survey respondents would be more or less likely to vote. The conclusion that people who watch the Daily Show might be less likely to vote was supported by the fact that the Daily Show viewers come out with a less favorable opinion of both candidates, as well as more cynical opinion of the mainstream media and the electoral process. That might have the effect of reducing participation, of course, but it might not. Either way, however, there is an important factor that is not addressed: does the Daily Show present a more or less accurate view of reality than the mainstream media does? If the impression left by the Daily Show is based on distortions and lies, then the problem is with the Daily Show. On the other hand, if the Daily Show is presenting accurate information, then maybe - just maybe - the problem has more to do with the spectacularly inept performance of politicians on all sides of the political divide, and less to do with that evil Stewart boy telling people the truth all the time. (Just in case my bias isn't already clear to all but the comatose, I'm leaning a bit towards the second option.)