scholarly journals Political Sophistication and Presidential Candidate Considerations: Disentangling the Effects of Knowledge, Interest, and Media Exposure

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 271-293
Author(s):  
Jeff R. DeWitt
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Media Exposure ◽  
Presidential Candidate ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
Candidate Evaluations ◽  
Specific Expertise

Answers to political sophistication questions are typically tied to theoretical or normative assumptions, which produce given sets of operational guidelines. In this study, I develop an understanding of election specific expertise, conceived of as three distinct dimensions—knowledge, interest, and media exposure. This methodological approach helps provide a richer appreciation of the unique effects of each dimension on the nature, number, and breadth of candidate considerations employed by voters. Results lend support for the overriding claim that sophistication is a critical source of heterogeneity within the American electorate. The classic democratic competency standard of an issue-driven voting public is achieved through a more knowledgeable, interested citizenry. At the same time, knowledge and interest produce divergent influences on particular types of personality-based candidate evaluations while media exposure is most remarkable for its absence of explanatory value.

scholarly journals Awareness, Partisanship and the Post-Convention Bounce: A Memory-Based Model of Post-Convention Presidential Candidate Evaluations Part II—Empirical Results

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Grimmer
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Candidate ◽  
Presidential Election Of 2000 ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Political Partisanship ◽  
The Us ◽  
Candidate Evaluations ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Using Data

This paper continues an analysis, begun in the December 2004 issue, that employed panel data to estimate the effects of awareness and political partisanship on post-convention candidate evaluations. The derivation of a theoretical framework was discussed in Part 1 [1]. Empirical results using data from the US presidential election of 2000 are discussed in the present article. We find that partisans of the opposite party were more resistant to the convention message of Bush than Gore, that awareness played a greater role in determining a predicted post-convention change for Gore, and that Gore’s message was received and accepted at a higher rate than Bush’s message.

scholarly journals Tapping to Carter: A Response to Fischinger and Dyck-Hemming

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 321
Author(s):  
Ève Poudrier
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Method ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Compositional Language ◽  
Short Essay ◽  
Musical Communication ◽  
Source Materials ◽  
Specific Expertise

This short essay responds to issues raised by Fischinger and Dyck-Hemming in their commentary on this author's article "Tapping to Carter: Mensural Determinacy in Complex Rhythmic Sequences." Borrowing Christopher Hasty's concept of mensural determinacy, I used an excerpt of Elliott Carter's 90+ for piano (1994) as source materials for a tapping experiment aimed at: (1) testing the hypothesis that style-specific expertise correlates with lower tapping variability; (2) exploring the influence of an implied beat on participants' interpretation of the underlying pulse, as shown by spontaneous tapping; and (3) exploring the influence of a subset of musical parameters as well as participants' characteristics on tapping behavior. This response aims to clarify the methodology employed, especially with reference to the interpretation of the results; it also addresses concerns raised by the reviewers in relation to the use of the tapping paradigm to investigate Carter's compositional language. While the experimental method necessarily limited the interpretation of participants' ongoing experience of pulse, the findings provide useful insights on the role of style-specific expertise and call for a more diverse and disciplinarily unbounded methodological approach to the study of musical communication.

scholarly journals Testing and unpacking the effects of digital fake news: on presidential candidate evaluations and voter support

AI & Society ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 969-980
Author(s):  
Rodolfo Leyva ◽  
Charlie Beckett
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Presidential Candidate ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Democratic Candidate ◽  
Electoral Impact ◽  
Candidate Evaluations ◽  
Democratic Elections

Abstract There is growing worldwide concern that the rampant spread of digital fake news (DFN) via new media technologies is detrimentally impacting Democratic elections. However, the actual influence of this recent Internet phenomenon on electoral decisions has not been directly examined. Accordingly, this study tested the effects of attention to DFN on readers’ Presidential candidate preferences via an experimental web-survey administered to a cross-sectional American sample (N = 552). Results showed no main effect of exposure to DFN on participants’ candidate evaluations or vote choice. However, the perceived believability of DFN about the Democratic candidate negatively mediated evaluations of that candidate—especially amongst far-right ideologues. These results suggest that DFN may at worst reinforce the partisan dispositions of mostly politically conservative Internet users, but does not cause or induce conversions in these dispositions. Overall, this study contributes novel experimental evidence, indicating that the potential electoral impact of DFN, although concerning, is strongly conditional on a reciprocal interaction between message receptibility and a pre-existing right-wing ideological orientation. The said impact is, therefore, likely narrow in scope.

scholarly journals Awareness, Partisanship and the Post-Convention Bounce: A Memory-Based Model of Post-Convention Presidential Candidate Evaluations Part 1—Introduction & Theoretical Analysis

2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Grimmer
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Functional Form ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Presidential Candidate ◽  
Ols Regression ◽  
Political Partisanship ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Candidate Evaluations

This paper employs panel data to estimate the effects of awareness and political partisanship on post-convention candidate evaluations. The theoretical framework proposed by John Zaller (1992) is employed; however, a functional form that differs greatly from Zaller’s proposed model is derived from Zaller’s assumption and then estimated using standard OLS regression. I find that partisans of the opposite party were more resistant to the convention message of Bush than Gore, awareness plays a greater role in determining predicted post-convention change for Gore, and that Gore’s message was received and accepted at a higher rate than Bush’s message.

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