{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/20227"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/20227","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Dissecting frogs: The effect of humorous political advertisements on candidate evaluations","abstract":"This dissertation examines the role of humor in political campaigns, with a primary focus on candidate evaluations. The use of humor by candidates in campaigns, though widespread in the political arena, has been largely ignored by mainstream political science. This neglect is unfortunate because of the importance that many candidates place on humor, to the extent of hiring professional comedy writers to help with speeches and spending precious advertising dollars on humorous commercials. Specifically, this research attempts, utilizing experimental methods, to determine if humor used in real political commercials helps increase or decrease positive judgments of candidates.","abstract_html":"This dissertation examines the role of humor in political campaigns, with a primary focus on candidate evaluations. The use of humor by candidates in campaigns, though widespread in the political arena, has been largely ignored by mainstream political science. This neglect is unfortunate because of the importance that many candidates place on humor, to the extent of hiring professional comedy writers to help with speeches and spending precious advertising dollars on humorous commercials. Specifically, this research attempts, utilizing experimental methods, to determine if humor used in real political commercials helps increase or decrease positive judgments of candidates.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Marshall, Richard Henry"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Political Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Kuklinski, James H."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-07T12:32:55Z","date_published":"2011-05-07T12:32:55Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:15Z","subjects":["Business Administration, Marketing","Political Science, General","Mass Communications"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Copyright 1996 Marshall, Richard Henry"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["9780591088694","AAI9702599","(UMI)AAI9702599"],"render_values":[{"text":"9780591088694","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"AAI9702599","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"(UMI)AAI9702599","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20227","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Kuklinski, James H."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Marshall, Richard Henry"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-07T12:32:55Z","10000-01-01","1996"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Political Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Business Administration, Marketing","Political Science, General","Mass Communications"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 1996 Marshall, Richard Henry"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["9780591088694","AAI9702599","(UMI)AAI9702599","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20227"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This dissertation examines the role of humor in political campaigns, with a primary focus on candidate evaluations. The use of humor by candidates in campaigns, though widespread in the political arena, has been largely ignored by mainstream political science. This neglect is unfortunate because of the importance that many candidates place on humor, to the extent of hiring professional comedy writers to help with speeches and spending precious advertising dollars on humorous commercials. Specifically, this research attempts, utilizing experimental methods, to determine if humor used in real political commercials helps increase or decrease positive judgments of candidates.","The findings indicate that the use of humor in a political advertisement may not always benefit a candidate, especially if the humorous segment is separated from the candidate. But when humor comes from the mouth of the candidate directly, it does increase the subsequent evaluations of that candidate. Two important results should be noted. One, humor seems to have a polarizing effect on audiences, with possible risks or reward associated with its use. Two, the relationship between the number of jokes in a political commercial and evaluation of the candidate is non-linear. As the amount of humor in a political commercial increases, it must reach a threshold level in order to gain a more positive evaluation than had no humor been used. In addition, there appears to be a level of diminishing returns as the amount of humor increases.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:32:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9702599.pdf: 9156733 bytes, checksum: 9b786dfe5a42bc044b930c8cb5e645f9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1996","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:42:29Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:18:28-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Dissecting frogs: The effect of humorous political advertisements on candidate evaluations"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Kuklinski, James H."],"dc:creator":["Marshall, Richard Henry"],"dc:date":["2011-05-07T12:32:55Z","10000-01-01","1996"],"dc:description":["This dissertation examines the role of humor in political campaigns, with a primary focus on candidate evaluations. The use of humor by candidates in campaigns, though widespread in the political arena, has been largely ignored by mainstream political science. This neglect is unfortunate because of the importance that many candidates place on humor, to the extent of hiring professional comedy writers to help with speeches and spending precious advertising dollars on humorous commercials. Specifically, this research attempts, utilizing experimental methods, to determine if humor used in real political commercials helps increase or decrease positive judgments of candidates.","The findings indicate that the use of humor in a political advertisement may not always benefit a candidate, especially if the humorous segment is separated from the candidate. But when humor comes from the mouth of the candidate directly, it does increase the subsequent evaluations of that candidate. Two important results should be noted. One, humor seems to have a polarizing effect on audiences, with possible risks or reward associated with its use. Two, the relationship between the number of jokes in a political commercial and evaluation of the candidate is non-linear. As the amount of humor in a political commercial increases, it must reach a threshold level in order to gain a more positive evaluation than had no humor been used. In addition, there appears to be a level of diminishing returns as the amount of humor increases.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:32:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9702599.pdf: 9156733 bytes, checksum: 9b786dfe5a42bc044b930c8cb5e645f9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1996","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:42:29Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:18:28-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"],"dc:identifier":["9780591088694","AAI9702599","(UMI)AAI9702599","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20227"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 1996 Marshall, Richard Henry"],"dc:subject":["Business Administration, Marketing","Political Science, General","Mass Communications"],"dc:title":["Dissecting frogs: The effect of humorous political advertisements on candidate evaluations"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Political Science"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:15Z"}