The Oliver Twist: Why young adults watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Motivations matter because they affect cognitive processes, which in turn impact any effects that satire might have upon viewers. Therefore, a better understanding of motivations add nuance to future research and generates suggestions on how to create engaging news narratives for a twenty-first century audience. This paper investigates why young adults watch the popular journalistic satire show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Through semi-structured interviews with young adults (N = 11), using theoretical thematic analysis, a framework of 11 motivations for consuming satire was constructed. The results of this study carry four implications: (1) entertainment and information are interdependent, (2) information is made up of learning and understanding, (3) two new motivations were discovered: inspiration and host, and (4) young adults desire authenticity.