Gender/issue interaction in political identity making: Nebraska's woman vs. woman gubernatorial campaign

An emerging area of communication study is the process by which women seeking elective office construct their political identity. This essay engages that literature examining the historic 1986 Nebraska gubernatorial race as a case study. Two interrelated findings emerged from the study including: (1) gender perceptions were a factor even in this “genderless” election, and (2) each candidate's political identity was constructed through the interaction of gender characteristics and candidate issue positions.     

Politics of representation in the digital media environment: presentation of the female candidate between news coverage and the website in the 2007 Korean presidential primary

This study analyzes how a female candidate was presented in the news media and on her campaign website, in order to compare the politics of gender representation in news coverage and campaign communication. Content analysis of news coverage of a Korean female candidate and the candidate's website shows that the female candidate was differently portrayed in the two media in presentations of personal trait frames, the linkage between issues and personal traits, and other gender-related characteristics, although the quantity of issue frames did not differ significantly. The findings suggest that although the news coverage still tends to reinforce gender stereotypes regarding a female candidate, the candidate used or articulated gender identities in her campaign website to oppose framing stereotypes in the traditional news media.     

Who Says What About Whom: Young Voters' Impression Formation of Political Candidates on Social Networking Sites

Social information processing theory claims that computer-mediated communication users form impressions of others by utilizing available information in the web environment. As social networking sites offer a wider variety of cues, however, the environment has become increasingly complex. This study explores which cues influence computer-mediated communication users in a cue-rich environment. More specifically, based on the social identification and deindividuation model, we examined not only how others' opinions but also how the perceived age of the commenters and candidates influenced young people's impressions of political candidates. Participants (N = 520) were randomly placed into a 2 (positive/negative comments) × 2 (younger/older commenters) × 2 (younger/older candidate) design and exposed to a fictitious candidate's Facebook profile with unknown others' comments before reporting the candidate's trustworthiness. Although comments' valence was the strongest cue, the results showed that older commenters' opinions were more influential than young commenters'. This two-way interaction between comments' valence and commenters' age was significant only when the candidate was young, suggesting that social networking sites users utilize multiple cues depending on the situation.     

Meet the candidates

Objective: To consider sex roles in public speaking through the conversational style of modern-day political rhetoric Type of speech: Informative Point value: 15% of course grade Requirements: (a) References: 3; (b) Length: 5–7 minutes, (c) Visual aid: No; (d) Outline: Yes; (e) Prerequisite reading: Any biographical information found on the person that students are portraying, Chapter 11 (Brydon & Scott, 2002); (f) Additional requirements: None This assignment requires students to research the biography of either a political candidate or a candidate's spouse, and structure this information in an informative way. Students then portray the candidate or the candidate's spouse and present the information at a “meet the candidates” forum in class.     

Individual Motivations and Information Source Relevance in Political Decision Making

This study explored citizens' political involvement, their attention to candidates ' issue stands or personal qualities, and their evaluations of the relevance of different sources of information to political decision making. A telephone survey of a random sample (N = 420) of registered voters in a Southwestern city indicated that involvement did not associate with evaluations of the relevance of newspapers or television news to political decision making and negatively associated with evaluations of the relevance of advertising to political decision making. In addition, respondents ' attention to candidates 'personal qualities positively associated with evaluations of advertising relevance to political decision making, whereas their attention to candidates ' issue stands positively associated with their evaluations of the relevance of interpersonal communication to political decision making. These results suggest that involved voters receive little benefit from political advertisements, whereas voters who attend to candidate images find them informative. Interpersonal communication is an especially important source of election information for highly involved voters and for voters who attend to candidate issues.     

Effects of Soft-Money Issue Advertisements on Candidate Evaluation and Voting Preference: An Exploration

This empirical study assessed the effects of negative issue advertisements sponsored by both political candidates and soft-money political organizations. An experiment was conducted to see how negative issue advertisements sponsored by different political entities affect people's assessment of the political candidates and voting decisions. Results provide strong support for the hypothesis that negative advertisements significantly lowered assessments of the target candidate and backfired against the sponsoring candidate. However, the backlash effects were minimal when negative advertisements were sponsored by soft-money political organizations. These results suggest that even in the absence of express advocacy to vote for or against political candidates, soft-money negative issue advertisements could produce the intended detrimental impact while avoiding boomerang effects.     

Books received

This study examined issue learning outcomes in three intra‐party political debates during the 1984 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The results indicated that intra‐party political debates produce significant viewer learning (1) about the issue positions of each participating candidate, (2) about most issues, and (3) among all categories of viewers. In addition, the study found that intra‐party political debates produce distinct outcomes, including: variation in learning between debates about candidate positions on particular issues; significant increases in learning about the positions of the Democratic candidates on the part of Democratic, Republican, and nonaffiliated viewers; and a negative effect on viewer knowledge about nonparticipating incumbent Ronald Reagan's positions on the issues.     

Mythology,narrative, and discourse in Javanese wayang towards cross‐level theories for the new development paradigm

This study is aimed mainly at portraying the profiles of the visitors to presidential candidate's websites in Taiwan's 2000 election. An online survey was conducted, initiated by visitors' clicking button ads on different candidates' websites, which linked them to a questionnaire. The results reveal that mainly the site visitors were male, young, and highly educated. Most visitors agreed that their motive to visit candidates' websites were to acquire candidate‐related information, and to better understand the candidates' standing on policies. Those who visited a particular candidate's site tended to be supporters of that candidate.     

Uses of computer‐mediated political communication in the 1992 presidential campaign: A content analysis of the Bush,Clinton and Perot computer lists

This article presents a content analysis of three computer‐mediated communication (CMC) networks used for political discussion during the 1992 Presidential election campaign. Data indicate that the main use of computer networks in the campaign was to assert personal opinions about the candidates, issues, and the election. Other uses were talking about one's own life and experiences, telling others what they should be doing, and posting information for others to read. Significant differences were found between the three campaigns for uses of these computer networks. The Clinton network was used more than the other two for posting information. The Perot network was used more than the others for asserting opinions. This study indicates that voters have specific functions for the use of computer networks as new channels of political communication. Future research should examine what groups of voters use these networks the most and how such use affects candidate image formation. Suggestions are offered for the study of campaign computer lists in the upcoming presidential election of 1996.     

Contractualism,Committalism, and Covenantalism: A Worldview Dimensional Analysis of Human Relating

Throughout the literature much of the research on political campaign debates has focused on presidential debates and has largely ignored non‐presidential debates, particularly those featuring candidates competing in mixed‐gender races. The purpose of this study is to draw attention to these non‐presidential debates and particularly those in which gender may play a pivotal role. Through our analysis of four debates—two gubernatorial and two U.S. Senate debates—we advance the notion of debatestyle as a useful analytic scheme to examine the verbal content of female and male candidate debate dialogue. While few differences in female and male debatestyles ultimately emerged, results of the current study indicate that female and male political candidates, when engaged in debate, adopt a strategy of gendered adaptiveness that offers important contributions to both research on political debates as well as research on gender and politics.     

First and second-level agenda-setting in the 2014 Indian general election: a time-series analysis of party-media relation

The role of the press as a political watchdog is crucial to the functioning of democracy. Especially in the run-up to elections, voters depend on the media's presentation of parties and candidates to make informed, responsible choices at the ballot box. But who, then, influences the news media? Empirical evidence in the United States and Europe suggests that political party campaigns and election coverage in the news media are interconnected and influence each other. This study tests whether such agenda-setting effects between party campaigns and the media also take place in the general elections in the world's largest democracy, India. India's western-type political system has a distinct media system characterized by high competition, diversification, non-consolidation and formal and informal ties between the media, commercial interests and political actors. Content analysis and Granger's causality test of newspaper coverage (N?=?716) and party campaign messages (N?=?458) found that agenda-setting effects do occur in India, but are largely bi-directional. We also found an overwhelming focus of both newspapers’ election coverage and of all major party campaigns on one single candidate, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Narendra Modi. This, we argue, is a result of the broader trends that have shaped Indian politics in recent years. The significant correlations and non-significant causal effects between party campaign and media coverage also indicate a trade-off situation between political power negotiation and political balance in the press.     

I Approve This Message: Effects of Sponsorship,Ad Tone,and Reactance in 2008 Presidential Advertising

This experiment (N = 198), conducted just before the 2008 presidential election, set out to examine the effects of tone and sponsorship in current political advertising, the first such study since campaign law began requiring candidates to approve their ads explicitly. In another first, we also examined the role of reactance in responses to political advertising. With regard to tone, positive ads received higher ad evaluation and cognitive response valence scores and less reactance than negative ads, but negative ads led to a greater likelihood of turning out to vote. Moreover, those without a strong candidate preference were more likely to vote for a candidate supported by a negative ad. Sponsorship had little effect on its own, but there were some intriguing interactions with political knowledge such that high-knowledge respondents had less reactance and lower opponent ratings, whereas moderate-knowledge respondents had the opposite reaction. We also found that reactance appears to play a major role in the effects of political advertising. It was associated directly with more negative cognitive responses, ad, and candidate evaluations and indirectly with lower intention to vote for the candidate supported by the ad, but it had no relationship with intent to turn out to vote.     

Evolution of Online Campaigning: Increasing Interactivity in Candidate Web Sites and Blogs Through Text and Technical Features

Political candidates have responded to the public's desire to use the Internet as an interactive information source by creating their own online presence. This study is a content analysis of the Web sites and blogs of the 10 Americans vying to be the Democratic candidate for the 2004 presidential election. Focusing on interactivity, data indicated front pages hyperlink to participation areas such as Donation or Volunteer sections and rarely linked to external content. Blogs used hyperlinks at a rate less than Web sites. Interactivity was encouraged through text, as 83.7% of Web sites asked voters to become more involved. Blog posts discussed issues and attacked the opponents, including President Bush. For the most part, blog posts were personal in nature and used direct address. The tactical use of advanced Web site features showed a technological progression of political campaigning and an overall increase in interactivity through technology and text.     

The role of communication in the formation of an issue-based citizenry

Citizens can gain a better understanding of the important issues of a campaign and where candidates stand on those issues from three primary sources: direct candidate-to-citizen mass media messages (e.g., political advertisements, debates), news (e.g., newspapers, television news), or discussion with fellow citizens. The current study conducted a secondary analysis of 1996 American National Election Study (ANES) data to replicate Brians and Wattenberg's (1996) findings concerning the relative influence of political advertisements, television news use, and newspaper use on voter issue knowledge and salience in the 1992 United States presidential campaign. We also analyzed two additional communication information sources, general political discussion and debate viewing. The effects of political advertisement recall, television news viewing, and newspaper use replicated across election studies. General political discussion was found to affect both issue knowledge and salience, and when introduced into the regression analyses nullifies the predictive power of political advertisement recall for knowledge. Talk's influence on salience wanes in subsequent analyses. Viewing the first debate was a strong predictor of issue knowledge, but was not associated with issue salience. Advertisement recall maintained predictive power for issue salience even after taking into account the other four information sources, and watching the second debate also predicted salience. The combination of results presents evidence that candidate-to-citizen and citizen-to-citizen communication play unique roles in determining levels of issue knowledge and salience.     

Texas Woman's University and White House Communications on the Internet

During the course of the 1992 United States Presidential campaign, electronic discussion lists were established on Bitnet which allowed "subscribers" to openly discuss issues relevant to each candidate's campaign. A discussion list was formed for each of the three candidates. In the summer of 1992, the Clinton and Bush campaigns began posting full-text documents (speeches, interviews, platform positions, etc.) to each respective list on Bitnet, making available information that was almost nonexistent in any other format to faculty and students at Texas Woman's University. It was soon discovered that these documents were available elsewhere, but only through the Internet, and they were readily accessible for the taking. Organizations such as the federally sponsored Hermes Project and the National Public Telecmuting Network (NPTN) also provided access to these documents. The reference department at TWU soon took advantage of this information, and with the realization that most of the university community was still alien to electronic file transfer and Bitnet discussion lists, decided to make these documents available in a more traditional manner by retrieving them either through the discussion list or through one if the their organizations providing campaign documents via the Intemet. This article documents the reference department as an instrumental part in using the IInternet in the acquisistion of these campaign documents both before and after the November election for use by faculty and students, as well as members of the city Denton, Texas.     

Voters' Attention,Perceived Effects,and Voting Preferences: Negative Political Advertising in the 2006 Ohio Governor's Election

A statewide survey (N = 564) before Ohio's 2006 gubernatorial election examined political interest, campaign news and advertising attention, and perceived effects of negative political ads. Interest was related to political and negative political advertising attention, which were in turn related to campaign news attention. Candidate preference predicted attention to political and negative political ads; attention to ads significantly predicted perceived effects on self and on others, whereas attention to negative ads significantly predicted third-person differential (other minus self). In addition, individuals polled in this survey admitted that attention to ads and negative ads was having comparable effects on both themselves and others. This finding may be due to the climate surrounding Ohio's gubernatorial race, which instilled a political importance and social desirability that abated the need to disown an effect of negative advertising on oneself.     

Resting Prefrontal Cortex Asymmetry and Communication Apprehension,Verbal Aggression,and Other Social Interaction Constructs: A Meta-Analytic Review

This study examined the effect of body piercing on perceptions of an employment seeker's credibility, hirability, and attractiveness. Participants (undergraduate students and managers) viewed a photograph of a job candidate who wore either no jewelry, an earring, or a nose ring, and then rated dimensions of the candidate's credibility, hirability, and attractiveness. Analysis indicated that although the candidate's attractiveness ratings were not affected by the type of jewelry he wore, his credibility ratings decreased when he was wearing jewelry, and his hirability ratings decreased when he was wearing a nose ring. These results and their implications are discussed.     

Form and variations in negative political advertising

Using a sample of 99 political advertisements from 1990 statewide and federal elections, a content analysis was employed to test whether negative political advertisements exhibited a normative style. Results indicated that negative political advertisements were remarkably similar in substance and style, indicating a normative advertising form. The authors suggest that negative advertisements are used more to “blunt” an opponent's chance of winning the election than to promote the sponsoring candidate's own images or characteristics with their constituency.     

Which candidates do the public discuss online in an election campaign?: The use of social media by 2012 presidential candidates and its impact on candidate salience

The effects of new communication technologies on election campaigns, and the effectiveness of media-centered campaign strategies more broadly, remain ongoing subjects for debate in political science. This study provides some of the first empirical evidence about the potential impact of social media on the 2012 U.S. presidential elections, by testing the association between “candidate salience” and the candidates' level of engagement in online social media sphere. We define “candidate salience” as the extent to which candidates are discussed online by the public in an election campaign, and have selected the number of mentions presidential candidates receive on the social media site, Twitter, as means of quantifying their salience. This strategy allows us to examine whether social media, which is widely recognized as disruptive in the broader economic and social domains, has the potential to change the traditional dynamics of U.S. election campaigns. We find that while social media does substantially expand the possible modes and methods of election campaigning, high levels of social media activity on the part of presidential candidates have, as of yet, resulted in minimal effects on the amount of public attention they receive online.     

The Writing on the Wall: A Content Analysis of College Students' Facebook Groups for the 2008 Presidential Election

This study looks at student Facebook groups supporting the 2008 presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, from largest land-grant universities in seven battleground states. The findings of a content analysis of wall posts show that students are using Facebook to facilitate dialog and civic political involvement. In opposition to pro-McCain groups, pro-Obama groups have wider time frame coverage and demonstrate substantively higher site activity. Political discussions related to the political civic process, policy issues, campaign information, candidate issues, and acquisition of campaign products dominate across groups and election seasons. An examination of the content of wall posts based on the four categories of the Michigan Model of voting behavior (partisanship, group affiliation, candidate image, and political/campaign issues) reveals that in the primary season, pro-Obama groups focus mostly on short-term topics (candidate image and campaign issues), whereas pro-McCain groups focus mostly on long-term topics (partisanship and group affiliation). The overall findings of this study suggest that youth online communities actively follow campaigns and post comments that foster the political dialog and civic engagement.