The study of campaign '76: An overview

Influence of traditional and non‐traditional news media in the 1992 election campaign

“…Little research has been done to assess how different communication sources compare with each other over the course of the campaign. It is apparent, however, that voters' impressions and attitudes vary across the various phases of the campaign (Becker & Kraus, 1978;Chaffee & Choe, 1980;Cozzens & Manross, 1990;Whitney & Goldman, 1985), and therefore dictate the potential impact of mass media. Therefore, it is likely that during the initial phase of the general election campaign, when prospective voters are beginning to pay more attention to the candidates, but while attitudes are still fluid, news media communication will exert considerable influence.…”

Rethinking Election Debates

“…Jamieson and Birdsell's (1988) claim that "debates don't very often convert partisans from one side to the other" (p. 161) is supported by a convincing body of research literature (Benoit et al 2001;Holbert 2005;Holbert et al 2009;Holbrook 1996). Other surveybased research findings suggest that the picture is rather more complex and that televised debates do have independent effects upon politically undecided citizens; upon voters with a weak allegiance to one party or candidate; upon viewers' assessment of the character strengths and weaknesses of candidates, especially when the latter have had minimal media exposure before the debates; and upon close electoral races in which a relatively small number of votes might make a difference to the result (Becker and Kraus 1978;Blum-Kulka and Liebes 2000;Chaffee and Choe 1980;Geer 1998;Katz and Feldman 1962;McKinney and Carlin 2004;McKinney et al 2003;Pfau, 2002). Although it is difficult to think of more than one or two quite exceptional examples of a televised leaders' debate determining an election outcome, it would be unwise to conclude that debates merely reinforce preexisting preferences.…”

The Efficacy of Inoculation in Televised Political Debates

“…Some studies have offered contingent conditions for debate influence (Becker & Kraus, 1978;Chaffee & Choe, 1980;Geer, 1988;Hellweg et al 1992;Pfau, 2002;Racine Group, 2002). Becker and Kraus (1978) argued that campaign communication exerts the greatest influence on voting decisions when "one of the candidates is not well known, many voters are undecided, the contest appears to be a close one, and party allegiances are weak" (p. 267).…”

“…Becker and Kraus (1978) argued that campaign communication exerts the greatest influence on voting decisions when "one of the candidates is not well known, many voters are undecided, the contest appears to be a close one, and party allegiances are weak" (p. 267). When the number of undecided and conflicted voters is greater, debate effects are maximized (Geer, 1988).…”