Same same but different: Communicative functions and journalistic role performance in weekly news satire across cultural contexts

Abstract

Political satire has emerged as a hybrid genre that combines entertainment, information, and critique. While its societal relevance is well established in U.S. contexts, comparative research across cultural settings remains limited. This study examines the communicative functions and journalistic role performance (JRP) of weekly news satire across three countries: the United States (Last Week Tonight), Germany (ZDF Magazin Royale), and Austria (Gute Nacht Österreich). Drawing on the concepts of discursive integration and journalistic role performance in satire, the paper employs a Large Language Model-Assisted Content Analysis (LACA) approach to code 6356 sentences across 30 segments. Results show that while all programmes share a core reliance on the “comedic interlocutor” role and hybrid communicative strategies, significant cross-national differences emerge. U.S. satire exhibits stronger civic educator traits, German satire performs a pronounced watchdog function, and Austrian satire leans toward informative delivery with fewer evaluative or activist tones. These findings suggest the importance of media-systemic context in shaping satire’s journalistic behavior. The study also demonstrates the viability of LLM-assisted content analysis in journalism and communication research.

Keywords

Political satire journalistic role performance content analysi comparative research discursive integration LLM

Introduction

Political satire has evolved into a significant form of journalistic communication, bridging entertainment and public discourse (Baym and Jones, 2012; Becker, 2020; Becker and Bode, 2018). This evolution occured within the broader context of journalism’s legitimacy crisis, characterized by declining public trust, widespread news avoidance, and challenges to traditional journalism’s authority (de Bruin et al., 2025; Gao et al., 2025; Skovsgaard and Andersen, 2020). As traditional news media grapple with these challenges, satirical news formats have emerged not merely as entertainment alternatives, but as a potent response to journalism’s struggle to maintain relevance and credibility in contemporary media landscapes (Djerf-Pierre and Ekström, 2025), demonstrating their capacity to blur traditional genre boundaries by combining humour, information, and political commentary (Baym, 2005; Burgers and Brugman, 2022; Gao et al., 2025; Nicolaï and Maeseele, 2024). This hybridity raises important questions about their communicative functions – the underlying aim of a given act of speech – and their journalistic role performance – the presence of archetypical journalistic ideals in real-world news broadcasting – particularly as satirical formats find increasing success across different cultural contexts (Baym and Jeffrey, 2013; Boukes et al., 2022, 2024). Utilizing pre-existing codebooks for journalistic role performance (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024) and a newly developed framework for communicative functions based on Baym’s typology (Baym, 2005) while employing an LLM-Assisted Content Analysis (LACA) approach (Chew et al., 2023), this study comparatively examines weekly news satire from three cultural contexts – the United States (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver), Germany (ZDF Magazin Royale), and Austria (Gute Nacht Österreich) – aiming to answer the following research question: How do the communicative functions (CF) and journalistic role performances (JRP) in weekly political satire differ across cultural contexts?

This research intersects with ongoing debates in the field of journalism studies about truth construction and professional authority (Gao et al., 2025; Mellado and Mothes, 2025). Satirical news formats challenge journalistic conventions by openly embracing subjectivity and advocacy while fulfilling core journalistic functions (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024). As the profession seeks alternative approaches to maintain public engagement and fulfil journalism’s normative democratic functions (Djerf-Pierre and Ekström, 2025), understanding how news satire both performs journalistic and entertainment functions across cultural contexts becomes crucial. This paper aims to mitigate the lack of comparative literature on the topic (Boukes et al., 2024; Lichtenstein and Nitsch, 2023), since it remains unclear to what extent U.S. weekly news satire findings translate across cultural contexts (Boukes et al., 2024; Feldman, 2024). Early comparative work by Baym and Jeffrey (2013) compiled international case studies (Day and Thompson, 2013; Kleinen-von Königslöw and Keel, 2012) but lacked cross-cutting analysis. Since, initial cross-cultural research has examined online engagement with satire (Boukes et al., 2022; Boukes and Hameleers, 2020), framing and journalistic role performance (Ödmark, 2021, 2023; Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024), and production contexts (Garcia-Navarro, 2024; Koivukoski and Ödmark, 2020; Lichtenstein et al., 2021; Rainer, 2022). Analyses show that (Dutch) satire can hold politicians to account (Boukes and Hameleers, 2020) and boost engagement on social media (Boukes et al., 2022). A comparative analysis of Nordic news satire found that it performs strong advocate, watchdog, and civic-informer roles (Nicolaï, 2023; Ödmark, 2021; Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024). Thus, while initial findings suggest news satire transcends cultural contexts, exhibiting significant programme-specific variation in the blend of humour, information and opinion to perform its journalistic roles (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024), further research is needed to enhance the field’s understanding of the cross-cultural dynamics of political satire.

Literature review

Terminology and literature overview

Before proceeding, note that terms such as news parody (Leicht, 2023), news satire (Holm, 2023), and political comedy (Becker, 2011) are often used interchangeably, despite subtle distinctions that have shifted since the flourishing of literature on the topic in the early 2000s (Baum, 2002; Niven et al., 2003). Even within televised political satire, terminology remains inconsistent (Boukes et al., 2024). For clarity, this paper uses political satire while acknowledging criticisms of its implicit moral stance (Holm, 2023). The focus herein lies on weekly comedy programmes decoupled from daily news cycles, offering in-depth analyses of less well-covered issues (Droog and Burgers, 2023: 287). More precisely, these programmes fit the label “weekly news satire” (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024), or “investigative comedy” (Nicolai et al., 2022), as all three cases draw on investigative journalistic practices in style and substance.

In the literature, political satire’s role within journalism is debated across five key dimensions. First, journalistic practice: Nicolaï (2023) shows satirical programmes navigate an “ongoing definitional negotiation” between journalistic and comedic roles, evidenced by collaborative editing and fact-checking practices (Nicolaï and Maeseele, 2024). Similar structures appear in Nordic, German, and Anglo-American weekly news satire (Garcia-Navarro, 2024; Koivukoski and Ödmark, 2020; Lichtenstein et al., 2021; Rainer, 2022). This reflects the format’s “investigative comedy” model (Boukes et al., 2024), wherein humour is paired with journalistic values of scrutiny, documentation, and civic responsibility. Second, authority- and truth-construction. Gao et al. (2025) identify three key components of “discourse truth” in traditional journalism: authenticity (constructed through evidential markers like quotations and data), neutrality (signaled via third-party attribution and tentative language), and authority (established through institutional affiliations or personalization). Satirical news programmes often retain journalistic conventions such as source citation and evidential references – in an effort to base their humour on factual information (Garcia-Navarro, 2024) – allowing satire to maintain a semblance of authenticity and authority while suspending claims to objectivity under the guise of “comedic licence” (Nicolai et al., 2022: 2065). This enables more freely voiced critique, increased displays of emotionality, and the consideration of taboo or underreported topics (Davisson et al., 2019; Gehrke, 2024; Kraxberger and Prakken, 2025; Meier and Berg, 2024; Nicolai et al., 2022). Third, satire’s agenda setting capacity. Research demonstrates satire’s capacity to raise issue salience (Boukes, 2019; Meier and Berg, 2024) and engage in attribute agenda setting by reframing existing issues through emotional and personal dimensions (Ödmark, 2021). Fourth, as trust in legacy media declines and news avoidance rises (Skovsgaard and Andersen, 2020), news satire may serve as a re-entry point (Becker, 2024), offering both hedonic and eudaimonic satsfaction. This fosters the “gateway effect” (Xenos and Becker, 2009), wherein satirical content can lead to sustained news engagement. Fifth, audience evaluations reveal satire’s epistemic ambiguity: consumed as entertainment, it nonetheless informs and persuades (Becker, 2011; Boukes et al., 2024), though persuasive impact is often impressionistic rather than recall-based (Becker, 2022b). Furthermore, political alignment and age may mediate credibility, with left-leaning audiences being more receptive (Becker, 2023; LaMarre et al., 2009). Arguably, Satire’s embrace of subjectivity mirrors broader audience preference shifts toward interpretive, affective news (Kraxberger and Prakken, 2025; Newman and Gallo, 2019; Wojcieszak et al., 2024; Ödmark, 2021). Thus, political satire constitutes an extension of traditional journalism (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024), rather than a genuine alternative.

Communicative functions and journalistic role performance in weekly news satire

This paper makes use of two key theoretical concepts. First, communicative functions (Baym, 2005). Political satire is aptly described as “a hybrid blend of comedy, news, and political conversation” (Baym, 2005: 259). Consequently, Baym (2005) identified three core communicative functions (CFs) of satire: humour, explanation/education, and critique/evaluation, whose alternation he termed “discursive integration.” While entertainment is the primary intent, i.e. humour serves as the “hook” that “assembles the audience” (Baym, 2005: 273), the format’s hybrid nature enables information and critique to be delivered alongside mirth (Becker and Goldberg, 2017; Boukes et al., 2024; Kraxberger and Prakken, 2025).

This study applies Baym’s framework to international satire, assuming each sentence primarily fulfills one of the three communicative functions. To capture frequent overlap of humour with fact or opinion, a fourth Complex category is added, covering cases where factual or evaluative elements are mixed or they are integrated into the joke (Brugman et al., 2021; Droog and Burgers, 2023). This operationalization enables easier cross-lingual comparison via large-language-model assisted content analysis (Chew et al., 2023). The underlying assumption of political satire as a hybrid form of media extends to non-anglophone programmes – though this assumption has not been rigorously tested. Initial findings suggest that while the hybrid nature of news satire generally persists across cultural and programme contexts (Droog and Burgers, 2023; Droog et al., 2020; Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024) there exist significant differences in the blend of communicative functions across cultural contexts (H1a).

Second, journalistic role performance. A key debate in the literature is the extent to which satirical news programmes function as journalistic entities – despite satirists’ insistence that they are not journalists (Baym, 2005; Boukes et al., 2024). Early work found similar informational content between traditional and satirical news (Becker and Bode, 2018; Fox et al., 2007). More recent research applies journalistic role performance (JRP) theory (Mellado and Lagos, 2014) to satire (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024), categorizing observable journalistic ideals across three axes: (a) stance toward power – Watchdog versus Loyalist; (b) presence of satirist’s voice – Advocate versus Reporter; and (c) approach to serving the audience – Comedic Interlocutor versus Civic Educator. Satire typically favours watchdog scrutiny over loyalist roles and skews toward advocacy (Kraxberger and Prakken, 2025; Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024). The “Comedic Interlocutor” role includes ridicule, metaphor, and fourth-wall-breaking, making it particularly genre-typical (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024).

As outlined above, initial evidence suggests media environments shape satirical role performance, occupying a space as oppositional or alternative news due to sensational or partisan news contexts and a long tradition of oppositional journalism (Hallin, 1984), while German and Austrian public broadcasters may preserve clearer information-entertainment divisions (Lichtenstein et al., 2021). However, available literature suggests no significant differences in role performance distribution across cultural contexts (H1b), with the dominant role being comedic interlocutor (H1c) and the loyalist role being least prominent (H1d) (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024).

Data & methodology

Case selection and data collection

The dataset includes the programmes Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (LWT), Germany’s ZDF Magazin Royal (ZMR) and Austria’s Gute Nacht Österreich (GNÖ). Three factors informed the case selection. First, comparability across programmes: all provide weekly in-depth satirical analyses of less mainstream topics (Boukes et al., 2024; Davisson et al., 2019) and are comparable in respective reach and genre relevance (Ehrenberg, 2020; Fidler, 2020; Müller, 2025). On YouTube (LWT: 10.1M subscribers, 8M average views per video; ZMR: 1.45M subscribers, 1.23M average views; GNÖ: 65,000 subscribers, 52,000 average views), their average video viewership represents 2.4%, 1.4%, and 0.58% of respective national populations. The programmes are also similar in their satirical impact, as evidenced by documented media controversies, with all three featuring dedicated “Controversies” sections on Wikipedia.^1,^2,³ A review of recent media coverage concerning each programme also suggests outsized cultural, journalistic and political relevance (Fidler, 2020; Preach, 2025; Rottmann, 2025). In sum, all three are preeminent examples of weekly news satire (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024) in their respective media markets and as such inherently comparable.

Second, the German and Austrian cases address the dominance of U.S. examples in Late-Night research and the lack of German-language satirical news programme analysis (Kleinen-von Königslöw and Keel, 2012; Sitz, 2021). Finally, the case selection spans diverse media systems and political cultures, lending credence to a comparative approach. In terms of media systems, Hallin and Mancini (2004) classify the U.S. as a liberal media model, Germany as democratic corporatist, and Austria as formally democratic corporatist but trending toward polarized pluralist (Bleyer-Simon et al., 2024; Blum, 2005; Hayek, 2024). These differences manifest in public broadcasting strength, press freedom and media trust levels (Newman et al., 2024; Reuters Digital News Report, 2024; Steindl et al., 2024). This is evident in the traditional ratings metrics for the three programmes, which reveal that both European programmes achieve approximately 20% market share in key demographics, whereas LWT averages 0.11–0.3 ratings in the 18–49 demographic, reflecting the U.S. media system’s fragmentation.^4,^5,⁶ The cases also represent distinct political cultures: the U.S. emphasizes individual civic responsibility and valorises protest (Fitzgerald et al., 2021; Hook and Markus, 2020), while Germany and Austria favour institutionalized, consensus-oriented engagement (D’Amato and Schwenken, 2018; Filzmaier, 2002).

Only main segments were analysed – sections concerned with in-depth analysis of one topic (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024) – excluding guest appearances, musical performances, or headline recaps. This further increased cross-case-comparability, since all three monologues are remarkably similar in their format and conception. All three are distinct from the rest of the programme, in that they more seriously concern themselves with one topic in-depth, feature the host behind a desk with over-the-shoulder graphics and news clips as visual aids. The German and US programmes frequently employ “investigative comedy” (Nicolai et al., 2022), presenting results from in-house journalistic investigations. Other than the monologue, all three programmes include a short headline-recap at the top of the show, similar in style to SNL’s “Weekend Update.” The German programme additionally stands out by using in-house actors and comedians to sometimes inhabit fictional parody characters for entire separate segments, an approach the Austrian programme has adapted in recent years. Neither programme features celebrity guests on a regular basis.

Data was collected via YouTube auto-generated transcripts between March-May 2025, covering segments from November 2024 onward. All transcripts were checked and corrected for errors and – where punctuation was not available – manually separated into sentences. The final dataset contains N = 30 segments with n = 6356 sentences (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Dataset overview.

Overview dataset	GNÖ - AT	LWT - US	ZMR - DE	Total
Wordcount	12,904	37,473	29,898	80,275
Sentences (n)	1398	2450	2508	6356
Segments (N)	14	7	9	30
Time (HH:MM:SS)	01:57:00	03:39:01	03:31:34	09:07:35

Codebook co-creation and initial tests

This study employs the novel Large-Language-Model (LLM) Assisted Content Analysis approach (LACA) outlined by Chew et al. (2023), which involves specially customized LLMs across every step of the quantitative analysis process from creating and refining the codebook to the final data analysis. The process of codebook and LLM-coder creation differed across concepts.

For journalistic role performance, existing codebooks (Ödmark, 2021; Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024) were used to customize an LLM using OpenAI’s customization options. This involved prompting a customizable AI model (GPT-4o) to act as a qualitative coder based on a thorough read of said codebook, which was provided to the model as a PDF. The LLM was then provided with the transcripts and asked to code variables V4 through V30 from the JRP codebook for each transcript separately.

For the coding of communicative functions, since there is no agreed-upon codebook available, I followed the process outlined by Chew et al. (2023), co-creating a codebook in cooperation with the LLM in a multi-step process which involved first, describing the necessary categories to the LLM, making use of relevant literature as a reference point (Baym, 2005; Droog et al., 2020), beginning with the operationalization as outlined above. Second, a previously human-coded subsample of Late-Night Show transcript data not included in the final dataset was test-coded by the LLM and inter-coder reliability scores were calculated. Differing coding choices were examined and fed back into the LLM, asking the model to update its internal codebook to account for these disparate coding decisions. This process was repeated several times – each time with a different subsample of data – until sufficient levels of inter-coder-reliability were achieved (see below). The finalized codebook for the concept of communicative function can be found in the form of the LLM-internal instructions for the “Communicative Functions LLM” linked in the notes. The calibrated LLM-coder was then tasked with coding the dataset sentence by sentence and output the CF for each sentence separately. To ensure oversight and limit hallucinations, first, both LLMs were prompted to give brief justifications of each coding decision as part of their output, allowing for a human-in-the-loop design and increasing reliability and transparency. Second, to limit hallucinations due to memory overload, no more than 50 sentences were fed into the communicative functions LLM at a time and the output included the respective sentence it was supposed to code as well as the corresponding sentence ID. Taken together, these measures allowed the author insight into and oversight of the LLMs' coding process. The LLM outputs were manually transferred into a spreadsheet. The exact LLMs used for the analysis are publicly available via OpenAI’s custom-GPT programme.⁷

LLM-assisted content analysis: inter-coder reliability and LLM coding performance

To evaluate the consistency of automated coding in political comedy analysis, multiple large language models (LLMs) were tested as independent coders. Using the LLM-created codebook, a separate sample of Late Night transcripts’ communicative functions and journalistic role performance – this subsample was not used for the final analysis and comprised around 10% of the final dataset’s scope – were coded by a human coder with expertise in content analysis of political communication and satire research as well as four different LLMs: GPT-4o (customized), Claude 3.7, Gemini 2.0, and DeepSeek.

Inter-coder reliability was measured using Cohen’s Kappa, which is better suited for nominal and binary variables and accounts for agreement occurring by chance, thus pre-empting the criticism that LLMs merely hallucinate their output (Cesario, 2023). Regarding coding of communicative functions, the results showed that the customized LLM using GPT-4o achieved the highest agreement (0.81) with the human coder, followed by Claude 3.7 (0.69), DeepSeek (0.68), and Gemini 2.0 (0.65). These findings indicate that GPT-4o’s coding decisions were the most consistent with expert judgment, exhibiting almost perfect agreement, thus GPT-4o was used as the base model going forward, though it is notable that the remaining models still performed at a substantial to moderate level. To assess the consistency of the LLM-coder, the same set of sentences was coded twice, which, for the highest-performing model (GPT-4o), yielded a Cohen’s Kappa of 0.88, confirming that the LLM applied the coding scheme systematically and consistently over multiple rounds.

The LLM-coder for journalistic role performance, given a representative subset of Late Night transcripts from all three programmes included herein that were previously coded by a human expert, reached a Cohen’s Kappa of 0.85 across segments. Last Week Tonight was coded with perfect agreement, whereas for Austria’s GNÖ, the average Cohen’s Kappa was 0.79. A visual analysis of coding disagreements, however, revealed generally minimal disagreement.

Results

To test H1a, a Pearson’s chi-square test of independence was performed on the sentence level coded distribution of communicative functions (CFs) across satire programmes (see Table 5). The test yielded highly significant results (χ² = 129.69, df = 6, p < .001), indicating that CF usage varies systematically between shows. A Monte Carlo simulation (10,000 replicates) confirmed the robustness of this result (p = .0001). The strength of association, measured by Cramér’s V = 0.101, indicates a small but consistent effect, suggesting distinct rhetorical profiles for each programme.

Model-based estimated marginal means from a binomial logistic regression (see Table 2) further show programme-specific patterns. Relative to Last Week Tonight (LWT), ZDF Magazin Royale (ZMR) exhibits significantly lower odds of producing informative sentences (OR = 0.65, p < .001) but higher odds for humorous (OR = 1.43, p < .001) and evaluative content (OR = 1.39, p < .001). In contrast, Gute Nacht Österreich (GNÖ) displays higher odds of informative content (OR = 1.25, p < .001) and lower odds of complex speech (OR = 0.80, p = .016) compared to LWT. These results support H1a: while all programmes blend multiple communicative functions, their relative emphasis differs across cultural contexts.

Table 2.

Model-based estimated marginal means for communicative functions (logistic regression, sentence-level).

CF	Show	Estimate (logit)	SE	Odds ratio	p-value
Informative	LWT	0.01	0.04	1.00	—
	ZMR	−0.43	0.06	0.65	<.001^∗∗∗
	GNÖ	0.22	0.06	1.25	<.001^∗∗∗
Humorous	LWT	−0.10	0.05	0.90	—
	ZMR	0.36	0.07	1.43	<.001^∗∗∗
	GNÖ	−0.12	0.07	0.89	.117
Evaluative	LWT	−0.19	0.06	0.83	—
	ZMR	0.33	0.07	1.39	<.001^∗∗∗
	GNÖ	−0.06	0.08	0.94	.486
Complex	LWT	−0.40	0.07	0.67	—
	ZMR	−0.07	0.09	0.93	.027*
	GNÖ	−0.22	0.10	0.80	.016*

Note. LWT is reference category; odds ratios (OR) derived from logistic regression EMMs. Significance codes: *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

For journalistic role performance (JRP), Table 6 summarises the binary-coded role presence across shows, and Table 8 details variable-level patterns. The Comedic Interlocutor role was performed in all segments across programmes, and the Loyalist role was virtually absent. One-sided exact binomial dominance tests confirmed both H1c and H1d thresholds: Comedic Interlocutor in 100% of segments (p = .0012) and Loyalist in fewer than 20% (p = .0012).

To examine H1b, separate binomial logistic regression models were fitted for each role with LWT as the reference category (see Table 3). Significant cross-programme differences emerged only for Watchdog and Civic Educator. Compared to LWT, ZMR had significantly lower odds of performing as Civic Educator (OR = 0.36, p = .018), while GNÖ had lower odds for both Civic Educator (OR = 0.24, p < .001) and Watchdog (OR = 0.37, p = .002). GNÖ also had reduced odds of performing the Reporter role (OR = 0.56, p = .044). Advocate levels did not differ significantly between programmes. These findings reject H1b, demonstrating that despite shared genre traits differences in role performance may reflect structural and editorial differences. The analysis shows that specifically, LWT combines civic education with strong watchdog performance, ZMR matches LWT’s watchdog function but lags on civic education, while GNÖ underperforms multiple journalistic roles. For a summary of the paper’s hypotheses and their status post-analysis, see Table 4, for additional findings from the analysis, see Table 5 - 10 in the Appendix.

Table 3.

Model-based estimated marginal means for journalistic roles (logistic regression, segment-level).

Role	Show	Estimate (logit)	SE	Odds ratio	p-value
Reporter	LWT	−1.30	0.41	0.27	—
	ZMR	0.03	0.55	1.03	0.887
	GNÖ	−0.58	0.50	0.56	0.044^∗
Advocate	LWT	1.79	0.41	6.00	—
	ZMR	−0.36	0.54	0.70	0.153
	GNÖ	−0.24	0.50	0.79	0.290
Watchdog	LWT	1.79	0.52	6.00	—
	ZMR	0.50	0.69	1.65	0.092
	GNÖ	−1.00	0.63	0.37	0.002**
Civic educator	LWT	1.58	0.55	4.85	—
	ZMR	−1.02	0.73	0.36	0.018*
	GNÖ	−1.44	0.67	0.24	<0.001***
Comedic interlocutor	All	100% presence	—	—	—
Loyalist	All	≈0% presence	—	—	—

Note. LWT is reference category; Odds Ratios (OR) derived from logistic regression EMMs. Comedic interlocutor and loyalist show no variation and were excluded from regression models. Significance codes: *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Table 4.

Summary of hypotheses, tests, and outcomes.

Hyp	Hypothesis	Result summary	Status
H1a	CF usage varies between shows	Pearson χ² (6) = 129.69, p < .001; Cramér’s V = .101. Logistic pairwise: LWT vs ZMR (informative OR = 1.54, p < .001; humorous OR = 0.71, p = .049), ZMR vs GNÖ (informative OR = 0.52, p < .001), LWT vs GNÖ (informative OR = 0.80, p = .043)	Supported
H1b	JRP is uniform across shows	Segment-level logistic models show differences: Watchdog markedly higher in LWT/ZMR vs GNÖ (LWT vs GNÖ p < .001; ZMR vs GNÖ p < .001); advocate higher for LWT than ZMR (p = .015) and GNÖ (p = .003). Reporter n.s.; civic educator in same direction but not significant after adjustment (p = .085/p = .071)	Rejected
H1c	Comedic interlocutor is the most frequent role	Exact binomial: Role present in 100% of segments; p = .0012 (test of > 0.8)	Supported
H1d	Loyalist is the least frequent role	Exact binomial: Role virtually absent; p = .0012 (test of < 0.2). Pairwise: LWT, ZMR < GNÖ (small baseline) with p = .023/.004	Supported

Discussion

The cross-cultural comparative analysis revealed that, while Last Week Tonight, ZDF Magazin Royal, and Gute Nacht Österreich share a family resemblance as weekly news satire, they differ significantly in their communicative approach to fulfil their prototypical journalistic role. There are several implications of these findings both for the field of journalism studies and beyond.

First, as stipulated in H1a, the blend of communicative functions (CFs) differs significantly across cultural contexts – though all four CFs are utilized consistently, validating the conceptualization of political satire as a hybrid genre (Baym, 2005). The results herein, however, suggest that the writers and comedians behind the respective programmes come to drastically different conclusions regarding the appropriate mix of humour, information, opinion and complex speech that constitutes the final entertainment product, reflecting the “ongoing definitional negotiation” inherent to the genre, as described by Nicolaï (2023: 70). In contrast to Last Week Tonight’s (LWT) baseline, ZDF Magazin Royale’s (ZMR), blend of CFs suggests a preference for centering segments around a singular, salient piece of information (e.g. the main findings from a cooperation with investigative journalists), which is then subjected to extensive humorous commentary. Meanwhile, Gute Nacht Österreich’s (GNÖ) above-average informational content while comparatively lacking humorous speech may be a consequence of the starkly centralized structure of Austria’s public broadcaster which GNÖ is embedded in. Compared to Germany’s more pluralized public broadcaster landscape (Nitsch and Lichtenstein, 2013), this may impose stronger normative expectations regarding the editorial and rhetorical choices satirist make (Bezemek, 2011), such as privileging neutrality and comprehensiveness over adversarial or activist rhetoric (Brüggemann et al., 2014; Trappel, 2024). It is also possible that Austria’s smaller media market limits the programme’s available resources. Lowe and Nissen (2011) find that small countries often struggle to sustain resource-intensive entertainment genres like satire due to financial constraints and limited talent pools, leading to formats that are more modest in scope and heavily reliant on individual performers – both on and off camera. In Austria, this dynamic might restrict opportunities for alternative comedic voices to emerge while reducing institutional incentives to invest in innovative or risky satire programming (Coelho, 2014; Trappel, 2024). Indeed, substantial disparities in the programme’s production scale potentially account for differing CF usage: LWT employs 83 staff members, compared to ZMR’s 70, and GNÖ’s mere 37.^8,^9,¹⁰

The findings regarding Journalistic Role Performance continue the trend of cross-programme differences (H1b rejected), as both European cases differ starkly both from their U.S. counterpart and from each other in this regard. Last Week Tonight’s overperformance as a Civic Educator is consistent with existing research into the programme, which repeatedly highlights LWT’s emphasis on critical civic education and its efforts to promote social activism or, at the very least, offer audiences concrete avenues for democratic participation (Barnard and Boukes, 2024; Becker, 2022a; Chattoo and Feldman, 2020; Davisson et al., 2019; Meier and Berg, 2024; Michaud-Wild, 2019; Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024). Additionally, U.S. political satire audiences may be culturally more susceptible to a rhetoric of civic rights, protest as a legitimate and lauded form of participation, as well as the notion of individual responsibility for one’s problems (Hook and Markus, 2020; Olsen and Baden, 1974; Uhlmann and Sanchez-Burks, 2014) – all aspects reflected in the codebook’s wording of the civic educator role indicators (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024). In contrast, the relatively diminished presence of the civic educator role in both European programmes may be linked to cross-Atlantic differences in protest culture and civic discourse: Germany and Austria tend to favour more institutional, consensus-driven forms of political engagement (D’Amato and Schwenken, 2018). Protest movements in these countries are often less valorised and more fragmented, which may limit the rhetorical space for satire to take on an explicitly activist or civic mobilizing tone (Hadj Abdou and Rosenberger, 2019). Furthermore, Austrian political culture in particular has historically placed greater emphasis on political stability and technocratic governance than on individual civic responsibility or grassroots mobilization (Filzmaier, 2002; Zentrum Polis, 2023), especially as compared to the U.S. (Fitzgerald et al., 2021). As a result, the programmes’ relative lack of a civic educator function might not simply reflect editorial choice, but a broader mismatch between that role and the expectations and needs of its audience. Further differences in JRP between the two European programmes may stem from the aforementioned differences in their respective media systems. Analyses have found that German satire programmes such as ZDF Magazin Royale benefit from Germany’s robust public broadcasting (Nitsch and Lichtenstein, 2013), enabling satirists to extend journalistic scrutiny through comedy, supported by legal safeguards, investigative collaborations, and high-quality news content (Lichtenstein et al., 2021). In Austria, its central broadcaster (ORF) maintains a near-monopoly, fostering a consensus-oriented logic that constrains editorial risk-taking, potentially contributing to GNÖ’s under-performance in both the Watchdog and Reporter role (Brüggemann et al., 2014; Trappel, 2024). While the Austrian host’s faux access-journalism persona allows for subtle critique, it limits its potential for overtly adversarial, watchdog-style humour.

Additionally, cross-cultural differences in CFs and JRPs hint at how satirical programmes vary in their use of Gao et al., (2025)’s discourse truth construction – via authenticity, neutrality, and authority – as well as their agenda-setting capacity. All three programmes maintain authenticity through source crediting and grounding informative speech in verifiable data (Becker and Bode, 2018; Garcia-Navarro, 2024; Kraxberger and Prakken, 2025; Lichtenstein et al., 2021) but diverge in constructing authority and performing neutrality. Consistently low Reporter scores indicate a departure from traditional conceptions of neutrality, with explicitly voiced opinion enhancing the host’s authority (Gehrke, 2024; Becker, 2022a, 2022b, 2023; Kraxberger and Prakken, 2025), thus aligning satire more closely with opinion journalism (Kraxberger and Prakken, 2025). These strategies are culturally contingent: ZDF Magazin Royale leverages public broadcaster authority and comedic licence for watchdog-style critique, Gute Nacht Österreich aligns more with traditional neutrality, often repurposing news stories from its public broadcaster home, while Last Week Tonight combines information and evaluation with strong civic education. These differing approaches to news satire, in turn, may influence agenda-setting capacity (Boukes, 2019; McCombs and Shaw, 1972): LWT engages in both first- and attribute-level agenda setting (Meier and Berg, 2024; Michaud-Wild, 2019; Ödmark, 2021), ZMR focuses on attribute reframing within Germany’s information-rich context (Lichtenstein et al., 2021), and GNÖ prioritizes issue salience over framing within Austria’s consensus-oriented system. Overall, variations in truth construction and agenda setting reflect broader media system logics and audience expectations about the balance between information, interpretation and entertainment.

Overall, the results herein expand upon and validate the research of Ödmark and Nicolaï (2024), showing a similar general distribution of JRP (H1c, H1d) despite the differences in specific role performance across programmes. This strengthens the case that “satire does indeed do journalism” (Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024: 2332), possessing informational and societal value beyond mere entertainment (Becker and Bode, 2018; Boukes et al., 2024; Boukes and Hameleers, 2020). The differences between programmes in JRP are notably more prominent in this study, throwing into question the generalizability of prior research and pointing to the relevance of future cross-cultural analysis of political satire and the potential reasons behind the observed differences in satirical JRP. Without in-depth interviews with hosts, producers or writers of these programmes and additional cross-country comparisons, however, the drivers of these differences can only remain speculative (Boukes et al., 2024).

Conclusion

The findings herein advance our understanding of political (news) satire by demonstrating how cross-cultural differences exist in both the communicative functions (CFs) and journalistic role performance (JRP) of news satire, potentially reflecting variations in media systems, democratic cultures, and audience expectations. This study contributes to journalism scholarship and humour research in three key ways.

Theoretically, the systematic cross-cultural comparison reveals that while news satire shares universal genre features – its hybridity in mixing humour, information and opinion (Baym, 2005), as well as the dominance of the comedic interlocutor role and absence of loyalist journalism (Mellado and Lagos, 2014; Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024) – its remaining journalistic role performance is culturally contingent. The differential implications to discourse truth construction (Gao et al., 2025), agenda setting (McCombs et al., 2018), and the internal “ongoing definitional negotiation” (Nicolaï, 2023: 70) across the three programmes challenge assumptions about the universality of political satire formats and highlight how media system characteristics may shape satirical content. These findings both validate and extend existing frameworks (Baym, 2005; Ödmark and Nicolaï, 2024) by demonstrating that political satire’s hybrid nature manifests differently across cultural contexts, with implications for how we understand its role in democratic discourse and the topical focus of future studies on the topic.

Empirically, this study provides the first systematic comparison of communicative functions and journalistic role performance across U.S., German, and Austrian weekly news satirical formats. The finding that programmes balance entertainment and information differently – from ZMR’s concentrated informational cores over GNÖ’s traditional journalism alignment to LWT’s civic mobilization emphasis – suggests that news satire’s journalistic role performance varies alongside local media logics and cultural expectations. This cross-cultural variation has important implications for understanding political satire’s capacity to serve as a re-entry point for news-avoidant audiences and its potential for democratic mobilization (Skovsgaard and Andersen, 2020; Xenos and Becker, 2009).

Methodologically, the validation of the LACA approach (Chew et al., 2023) for cross-cultural political satire analysis offers a scalable solution to the resource constraints that have historically limited comparative research in this field. This contribution is particularly significant given the global proliferation of satirical news formats and the acknowledged need for systematic cross-cultural analysis in satirical journalism research (Boukes et al., 2024).

Looking forward, these findings suggest several avenues for future research to expand upon the findings herein and address some of this study’s shortcomings. First, while the addition of the complex category expands Baym’s (2005) framework to account for real-life complexities of humorous speech, future researchers should consider instead examining smaller linguistic units to better delineate between informational, humorous and evaluative functions, potentially foregoing the need for a “complex” category.

Second, the programmes analysed herein, share with the majority of political satire a progressive, left-leaning bias. This, in fact, enhanced cross-cultural comparability, as equivalent right-wing political satire formats remain as of yet absent in Germany and Austria, despite having witnessed a proliferation of self-proclaimed “anti-woke” comedians across the two countries in recent years (Langley-Hunt, 2024). It may thus only be a matter of time before similarly right-leaning political satire finds its footing in markets outside the U.S. Nonetheless, the present analysis consequently could not include the dynamics of explicitly right-wing comedy’s cross-cultural appeal, such as Fox News’ Gutfeld! (Fox, 2023). Importantly, these formats may fundamentally differ in their approach to truth construction and harbour entirely opposite conceptions of journalistic role performance, e.g. in their approach to watchdog journalism. Future scholarship should therefore address how differing ideological contexts shape political satire and its journalistic role performance.

Third, the framework established herein should be extended to non-Western contexts to test the generalizability of these patterns across different democratic traditions and media systems. Fourth, audience reception studies are needed to understand how cross-cultural differences in satirical journalism content affect viewer perceptions of entertainment versus information and civic engagement motivations. Finally, as digital platforms continue to reshape media landscapes, research should examine how platform logic interacts with the cultural and institutional factors identified here to influence news satire’s democratic functions. In an era of increasing news avoidance and democratic polarization, understanding these dynamics becomes ever more crucial for both scholars and practitioners seeking to harness news satire’s potential for democratic engagement.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Andreas M. Kraxberger

Notes

Appendix

. Table 5.

Distribution of communicative functions by show (sentence-level).

Show	Informative	Humorous	Evaluative	Complex
Show	% (n)	% (n)	% (n)	% (n)
GNÖ	55.2% (772)	23.0% (322)	13.8% (193)	7.9% (111)
LWT	49.7% (1216)	25.4% (621)	14.7% (359)	10.3% (251)
ZMR	39.1% (981)	32.5% (815)	19.9% (500)	8.5% (212)

Note. Percentages are the share of sentences of each communicative function within the given show.

Table 6.

Distribution of journalistic role performance by show (segment-level).

Role	GNÖ	LWT	ZMR	Total
Role	% (n)	% (n)	% (n)	%
Advocate	80.4% (14)	85.7% (7)	77.8% (9)	81.3%
Civic educator	57.1% (14)	82.9% (7)	64.4% (9)	68.1%
Comedic interlocutor	100% (14)	100% (7)	100% (9)	100%
Loyalist	1.4% (1)	0% (0)	0% (0)	0.5%
Reporter	10.7% (6)	21.4% (6)	22.2% (8)	18.1%
Watchdog	64.3% (14)	85.7% (7)	97.8% (9)	82.6%

Note. Percentages refer to average role performance scores across segments for each show. n indicates how many segments were coded as performing a given role.

Table 7.

Pairwise contrasts of communicative functions between shows (logistic regression, sentence-level; Holm-adjusted).

CF	Contrast	Odds ratio	SE	z	p-value
Informative	LWT/ZMR	1.540	0.179	3.690	<.001^∗∗∗
Informative	LWT/GNÖ	0.801	0.088	−2.030	.043^∗
Informative	ZMR/GNÖ	0.521	0.058	−5.880	<.001^∗∗∗
Humorous	LWT/ZMR	0.706	0.109	−2.250	.049^∗
Humorous	LWT/GNÖ	1.140	0.173	0.840	.401
Humorous	ZMR/GNÖ	1.610	0.263	2.910	.011^∗
Evaluative	LWT/ZMR	0.690	0.121	−2.110	.098
Evaluative	LWT/GNÖ	1.070	0.169	0.450	.653
Evaluative	ZMR/GNÖ	1.550	0.321	2.140	.098
Complex	LWT/ZMR	1.240	0.375	0.704	1.000
Complex	LWT/GNÖ	1.330	0.452	0.825	1.000
Complex	ZMR/GNÖ	1.070	0.395	0.185	1.000

Note. Odds ratios from binomial GLMs with show as predictor; p-values Holm-adjusted. Significance: *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Table 8.

Journalistic role performance variables by show (percentages).

Variable description	GNÖ	LWT	ZMR
Reporter role
V4 no opinion or judgment shown	0.0	0.0	0.0
V5 no adjectives used	0.0	0.0	0.0
V6 multiple sides of issue	42.9	85.7	88.9
V7 no use of first person	0.0	0.0	0.0
Advocate role
V8 clarifies which side is better supported	100.0	100.0	100.0
V9 explains causes, meaning, consequences	100.0	100.0	100.0
V10 expresses need for change	100.0	100.0	100.0
V11 encourages civic activity	21.4	42.9	11.1
Watchdog role
V12 critique of political actor	85.7	100.0	100.0
V13 critique of private institution	42.9	85.7	100.0
V14 critique of party/government	85.7	100.0	100.0
V15 critique of media institutions	21.4	42.9	88.9
V16 investigates/evaluates claims	85.7	100.0	100.0
Civic educator role
V17 mentions community impact	92.9	100.0	100.0
V18 provides background information	100.0	100.0	100.0
V19 gives practical advice	35.7	71.4	0.0
V20 educates on duties/rights	50.0	100.0	100.0
V21 mentions citizen acts	7.1	42.9	22.2
Comedic interlocutor role
V22 humor contextualizes news	100.0	100.0	100.0
V23 references emotions	100.0	100.0	100.0
V24 uses exaggeration	100.0	100.0	100.0
V25 parodies media formats	100.0	100.0	100.0
Loyalist role
V26 endorses partisan group/leader	0.0	0.0	0.0
V27 reverence to political culture	7.1	0.0	0.0
V28 loyalty to party/leader	0.0	0.0	0.0
V29 calls for national unity	0.0	0.0	0.0
V30 legitimizes authority	0.0	0.0	0.0

Percentages indicate how many segments were coded “1” for each variable per show. Sample sizes: GNÖ (n = 14), LWT (n = 7), ZMR (n = 9), total N = 30.

Table 9.

Pairwise contrasts of journalistic role performance between shows (logistic regression, segment-level; Holm-adjusted).

Role	Contrast	Odds ratio	SE	z	p-value
Reporter	LWT/ZMR	1.710	0.716	1.290	.591
Reporter	LWT/GNÖ	1.470	0.626	0.898	.739
Reporter	ZMR/GNÖ	0.856	0.201	−0.665	.739
Advocate	LWT/ZMR	2.670	0.979	2.670	.015^∗
Advocate	LWT/GNÖ	3.620	1.420	3.280	.003^∗∗
Advocate	ZMR/GNÖ	1.360	0.302	1.380	.167
Watchdog	LWT/ZMR	1.000	—	—	—
Watchdog	LWT/GNÖ	0.0000000113	0.0000000112	−18.400	<.001^∗∗∗
Watchdog	ZMR/GNÖ	0.0000000113	0.0000000118	−17.400	<.001^∗∗∗
Civic educator	LWT/ZMR	0.955	0.241	−0.184	.854
Civic educator	LWT/GNÖ	2.270	0.919	2.030	.085
Civic educator	ZMR/GNÖ	2.380	0.914	2.260	.071
Loyalist	LWT/ZMR	0.136	0.147	−1.850	.064
Loyalist	LWT/GNÖ	3.330	1.590	2.530	.023^∗
Loyalist	ZMR/GNÖ	24.400	24.400	3.200	.004^∗∗

Note. Odds ratios from binomial GLMs with show as predictor; some watchdog comparisons hit quasi/separation (—). p-values Holm-adjusted. Significance: *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Table 10.

Segments included in analysis.

Show	Title	URL	Date	Length
GNÖ	Warum die Rettung Rettung braucht	YouTube	08.11.2024	00:09:02
GNÖ	So wird das Burgenland verstaatlicht	YouTube	15.11.2024	00:08:02
GNÖ	Warum das Smartphone aus der Schule raus muss!	YouTube	22.11.2024	00:07:56
GNÖ	So liefen die Schredderaffären!	YouTube	29.11.2024	00:09:48
GNÖ	Abzocke mit Promi-Fakes	YouTube	06.12.2024	00:08:54
GNÖ	Wie Fernwärme seine Kunden ausnimmt	YouTube	17.01.2025	00:07:40
GNÖ	Wir sind von Asiens Medikamenten abhängig	YouTube	24.02.2025	00:07:08
GNÖ	Warum Nordkorea so gern in Österreich ist	YouTube	01.02.2025	00:07:10
GNÖ	Eine Alternative für Deutschland?	YouTube	14.02.2025	00:10:00
GNÖ	So gefährlich ist Russlands Sabotage!	YouTube	21.02.2025	00:06:56
GNÖ	Wie Banken Rekordgewinne einstreifen und trotzdem den Service verschlechtern	YouTube	28.02.2025	00:07:55
GNÖ	Warum immer mehr Schüler immer weniger Deutsch sprechen	YouTube	14.03.2025	00:09:17
GNÖ	Versinkt der ÖFB in Chaos?	YouTube	28.03.2025	00:09:11
GNÖ	Schafft Trump die Demokratie ab?	YouTube	04.04.2025	00:08:01
LWT	Trump 2.0	YouTube	16.02.2025	00:34:51
LWT	Facebook & content moderation	YouTube	23.02.2025	00:29:39
LWT	Tipping	YouTube	02.03.2025	00:24:54
LWT	ICE Detention	YouTube	09.03.2025	00:24:19
LWT	Sports betting	YouTube	16.03.2025	00:32:20
LWT	Tasers and excited delirium	YouTube	30.03.2025	00:30:37
LWT	Trans athletes	YouTube	06.04.2025	00:42:21
ZMR	Was Rechte uns als Freiheit verkaufen	YouTube	07.02.2025	00:24:08
ZMR	Die problematische Ideologie hinter Shen Yun	YouTube	14.02.2025	00:22:15
ZMR	Wie soziale Medien unseren Wahlkampf beeinflussen	YouTube	21.02.2025	00:21:36
ZMR	Politik und Medien und die Stimmung im Land	YouTube	28.02.2025	00:26:00
ZMR	Gemeinsam gegen die Einsamkeit	YouTube	07.03.2025	00:21:03
ZMR	Medizinische Influencer*innen: Diagnose Selbstvermarktung	YouTube	14.03.2025	00:22:51

Show	Title	Link	Date	Length
ZMR	Wer sich Deutsche Kinder für Deutschland wünscht	YouTube	21.03.2025	00:22:38
ZMR	Afghanistan: Die zweifelhafte Rolle der Bundespolizei	YouTube	28.03.2025	00:26:08
ZMR	Rene Benko: Macht, Korruption, Milliardenpleite	YouTube	04.04.2025	00:24:55

Author biography

Andreas M. Kraxberger, MA, is a university assistant at the Department of Media, Society and Communication, University of Innsbruck. His research interests lie at the intersection of political communication, journalism studies and humour research, as well as experimental methods in the social sciences. He is particularly interested in the role humour can play in reducing news avoidance tendencies and acting as a conduit to information dissemination. His work has been published in the European Journal of Political Research, Mass Communication and Society as well as Comedy Studies.

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