After nine years hosting one of the most popular comedy programs on air, it’s hard to remember a time when Stephen Colbert might have been mistaken for the kind of conservative commentator he satires. Yet before Colbert became an international celebrity, some people didn’t know what to make of him—especially if they agreed with what he seemed to be saying.

Some research has suggested that the mixed messages in “The Colbert Report” might actually make people more sympathetic to Republicans. In a 2008 paper in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Jody Baumgartner and Jonathan Morris, political scientists at East Carolina University, devised an experiment to explore how Colbert’s message was really coming across. They recruited over 800 college students and divided them into three groups: One watched clips of “The Colbert Report”; a second saw clips of “The O’Reilly Factor”; and a third group didn’t watch anything. Both sets of video clips concerned the same subjects, like the Mark Foley scandal and the U.S.’s policy on torture.

The students then took a survey about their political beliefs. Both groups—whether they’d been shown "Colbert" or "O’Reilly"—were more sympathetic to conservative points of view. This leaning affected issues of both policy and character: They were more likely to believe Republicans would do a better job than Democrats at managing the economy, and they reported more “warm” feelings toward George W. Bush. “Not everyone comprehends the nature of Colbert’s satire,” says Morris. “Early on in his career, people didn’t know where he was coming from. His character caught people off guard.”

“Not everyone comprehends the nature of Colbert’s satire.”

Students who watched "Colbert" also ended up feeling less confident about their understanding of politics: They were more likely to agree with the statement, “Sometimes politics and government seem so complicated that a person like me can’t really understand what’s going on.” (Similar research on “The Daily Show” shows the opposite effect: Jon Stewart—whose style invites his audience to feel like they’re in on the joke—leaves viewers feeling more confident in their political knowledge.) “The mixed messages contained in Colbert’s presentation create the possibility that young viewers may actually become more confused about politics,” write Baumgartner and Morris.

One major caveat is that the study only measured viewers’ feelings directly after watching the clips; we don’t know if there was any meaningful long-term effect. And like many psychology studies, it relied on a pretty homogeneous sample: 81 percent were white and everyone was under 25. They were also a little more politically sophisticated than the general population, having been recruited from intro-level political science courses. In other ways, though, the students were a good representation of Colbert’s average viewers. Their political affiliations were similar to those of the population at large—30 percent Democrat, 37 percent Republican, 33 percent Independent or “no preference.” Their TV habits also resembled those of their age group at that time: 27 percent regularly watched “The Colbert Report” or “The Daily Show,” as did 26 percent of 18–29 year olds in the country.