The Use Motivation of Political Satire Show and the Impacts of Viewing Frequency on Voters’ Political Efficacy and Political Cynicism—Taking Mr. Brown Show as an Example

Political satire show, distinguished from other forms of political protests, specialize in gaining entertainment from politics. Its popularity leads to the academic researches of audience’s viewing motivation. In Singapore, even though the government has strictly controlled the traditional media, a well known political satire show Mr. Brown Show has found its way to survive. As a Singaporean-made pod cast program, Mr. Brown Show satirizes Singapore’s policy and current affairs via the Internet so that people can always download the program content. According to the research findings in the western culture, watching political satire shows could be information-motivated or entertainment-motivated. Based on the fact that no study had ever detected the motivation of people’s viewing political satire shows in Singapore, this study tried to explore the motivation of viewing Mr. Brown Show and also to figure out the casual relationship between viewing frequency and citizen’s political efficacy and political cynicism. The Nielsen Company (Singapore) Pte Ltd. was commissioned to conduct a formal online survey by using the Nielsen’s online panel which consists of Singaporean adults spanning a wide range of demographic segments. Respondent quotas were set on key demographic variables (gender and age) to ensure that the sample represents Singapore Internet users. Finally, 503 samples were collected. The results show that the motivations of the viewing include search for identity/surveillance/discontent, entertainment value/social rituals and peer influence. In addition, viewing frequency can successfully predict people’s political efficacy and political cynicism. Yet, people tend to have higher political cynicism than political efficacy after viewing the show. Moreover, internet use can also predict political efficacy and cynicism, but traditional media use is not a significant factor for the above dependent variables.