Presidential Debates: The Challenge of Creating an Informed Electorate.

Bush, Gregory W.; Jamieson, Kathleen Hall; Birdsell, David S.

doi:10.2307/2078669

Cited by 19 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Despite this potential, televised debates have been criticized to be merely for show, to only consist of politicians trying to "score points" with hollow phrases, and for being reduced to empty discussions characterized by one-liners, slogans, and deceptive statements (Coleman, 2000;Jamieson and Birdsell, 1988;McKinney and Carlin, 2004;Walzer, 2007;Zarefsky, 1992). When citizens are exposed to such empty and misleading statements, they do not get full, balanced information on political issues, which decreases the availability of arguments and perspectives to reflect upon (Amsalem, 2019;Valentino et al, 2001;Van der Wurff et al, 2016).…”

Section: The Reflection-promoting Potential Of Televised Election Deb...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Food for Thought: A Longitudinal Investigation of Reflection-Promoting Speech in Televised Election Debates (1985–2019)

Turkenburg

Goovaerts

2022

Political Studies

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In televised election debates, politicians confront each other side-by-side to publicly debate their political viewpoints. As a result, these debates have the potential to promote reflective reasoning in citizens. However, concerns are voiced regularly about politicians’ increasing use of one-liners, slogans, and empty phrases, and decreasing use of elaborate and thoughtful argumentation, which may lower the debates’ reflection-promoting potential. Despite concerns, systematic empirical evidence testing whether reflection-promoting speech is declining is extremely scarce. This study contributes to filling this gap by (1) identifying four reflection-promoting speech components, that is, provision of justifications, substantive information, accessible communication, and engagement with others’ perspectives and (2) conducting a longitudinal quantitative content analysis (1985–2019) of Belgian election debates through the lens of their reflection-promoting potential. The results of all studied speech components point in the same direction: reflection-promoting speech in election debates has not declined, showing that allegations surrounding debates should be considered with caution.

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