Citizens, Politics and Social Communication

Abstract

Democratic politics is a collective enterprise, not simply because individual votes are counted to determine winners, but more fundamentally because the individual exercise of citizenship is an interdependent undertaking. Citizens argue with one another and they generally arrive at political decisions through processes of social interaction and deliberation. This book is dedicated to investigating the political implications of interdependent citizens within the context of the 1984 presidential campaign as it was experienced in the metropolitan area of South Bend, Indiana. Hence this is a community study in the fullest sense of the term. National politics is experienced locally through a series of filters unique to a particular setting and its consequences for the exercise of democratic citizenship.

Stability and Change in Party Preference

“…Coefficients of within-household effects are ambiguous about the questions whether agreement or disagreement has a stronger impact or whether partners or other household are more influential. But we can say that the hypothesis by McPhee (1963) and Huckfeldt and Sprague (1995), who argue that it is disagreement that primarily drives preference change, cannot be supported, as most coefficients for agreement are higher in absolute value than for disagreement. We also see that living with other household members by itself already has a stabilising effect on party preference, as indicated by the coefficients of "other constellations".…”

“…Such contextual effects are attributed to households, neighbourhoods, regions, the workplace, other group affiliations or media content and have already been a central aspect in the early electoral studies by Lazarsfeld et al (1948). Huckfeldt and Sprague (1995) present the following elements in their line of arguments of why party preferences depend on social context: Firstly, citizens value political information but they prefer to obtain it inexpensively. Secondly, exposure and interpretation of information is biased according to previous preferences and predispositions.…”

“…Results show a strong political homogeneity, which is due to both initial selection and a considerable convergence over time. McPhee (1963) and Huckfeldt and Sprague (1995) argue that preference change is mainly driven by disagreement between previously held preferences and incoming information. If disagreement is recognized, an individual reconsiders her preferences.…”

Multi-scalar cartographic analysis of 2008 and 2010 election returns in Wisconsin, USA

“…The maps presented in this article exhibit the ways in which local contextual studies that use small scales of analysis identify particular attributes that may help explain why groups of electors vote the way they do. As Huckfeldt and Sprague (1995) determined in their South Bend study, people that talk together vote together.…”

“…McClurg states, 'As such, these studies often offer different interpretations of their evidence that tend to muddy, rather than clarify, the role of aggregate diversity on participation ' (2006, p. 351). Pattie and Johnson (2000) note that the lone, but often cited study that combines the two schools of thought was conducted by Huckfeldt and Sprague (1995), who surveyed citizens in South Bend, Indiana about the role that personal interactions played in influencing political behavior. Their conclusion: People who talk together vote together.…”