Politically Entertained: Political Knowledge and Attitude Towards Lead Characters in Biographical Political Movies

• In Event: The Effects of Entertainment Media and Satire

Abstract

This article focused on the effects of entertainment narratives on the political learning and psychological engagement of the young audience with the mediated characters. Our work is an experimental investigation of the effects of constructive portrayal of female politicians in entertainment media on the cognitive and affective responses to entertainment narratives. We collected data from 310 participants, and the results indicated that participants’ political knowledge significantly increased after exposure to the biographical political movies. The study revealed that the biographical movies facilitated learning by significantly increasing the political knowledge of the audience. We also specified a path model and the results indicated that initial political knowledge transported the audience into the narrative of the biographical movies, which transfigured entertainment into an enjoyable experience, and significantly and positively affected audience’s political knowledge and attitude towards female politicians.

Authors

• Azmat Rasul, Florida State University

• Arthur A. Raney, Florida State U