Researchers: It’s all Stewart’s fault

Someone please stop Jon Stewart before he destroys American democracy.

Two university professors have published a study claiming that Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” drives down support for political institutions and makes young people more cynical about government.

“ ‘The Daily Show’ makes a habit of ridiculing the electoral and political process as a whole,” write Jody Baumgartner and Jonathan S. Morris in the May edition of American Politics Research.

Holy hanging chads -- they’re right!

Baumgartner and Morris, of East Carolina University, split 732 college students, with a mean age of 19, into three groups. One watched “Daily Show’s” irreverent coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign, while another viewed similar stories as handled by the somewhat more sober-minded “CBS Evening News” (the third group served as a control and didn’t watch any video).

The results were shocking. The college kids rated the “Daily Show” clips as much more entertaining than “CBS Evening News.” Clearly, there’s no hope for American youth.

More important, though, the researchers found a “modest” negative effect on the assessment of politicians and the political process among those young people who watched the “Daily Show” clips. But that effect, they add, mostly applied “to those who hardly ever watch the program.” In other words, the two professors extrapolated a broad sociological conclusion from a relatively small sampling of viewers who rarely if ever watched Stewart until the experiment came along.

Does Comedy Central owe them a cut of its PR budget?

One might wish that these academics had tackled a TV subject more worthy of inquiry, such as whether Paula Abdul’s behavior on “American Idol” constitutes illegal viewer torture. But some are already concerned about their conclusions, such as Washington Post columnist Richard Morin, who last week fretted that Stewart “may be poisoning democracy.”

The network is looking at the research’s bright side. “If there’s anything that interests young people any more in the political process, we think that’s a good thing,” said Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox.

Channel Island is a blog about the television industry. For the latest posting, go to latimes.com/channelisland. Contact reporter Scott Collins at channelisland@latimes.com