Benjamin R. Warner

Do Presidential Debates Matter? Examining a Decade of Campaign Debate Effects

This study responds to The Racine Groups (2002) call for campaign debate research that explores “the trans-campaign effects of debates on such matters as voting behavior, image formation, and attitude change” (p. 199). Our analysis of debate effects from 2000 to 2012 provides a number of important insights into how presidential campaign debates function in different campaign contexts. Specifically, we examine debate effects across multiple campaign periods, including analysis of the presidential election cycles and debates in 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012; and we also explore campaign contexts in which incumbents are seeking reelection (2004 and 2012) as well as “open” races with no incumbent president engaged in general election debates. Finally, our analysis allows for comparative assessments across different types of debates as we include viewer responses to both Democrat and Republican primary and general election debates, as well as vice presidential debates. Overall, our findings support existing presidential debate research, provide a greater understanding of specific debate effects, and also raise a number of intriguing questions for future research.

Segmenting the Electorate: The Effects of Exposure to Political Extremism Online

The Internet provides people with an opportunity to preselect the ideological perspective of the political content they encounter, allowing them to fragment themselves into narrow interest groups and ultimately polarize along ideological lines. This study seeks to test the extremism portion of the fragmentation thesis: that if individuals sort into cocoons of homogeneous perspectives their attitudes will polarize and greater political extremism will result. A random sample of students was exposed to one of four experimental conditions: ideologically homogeneous and highly conservative media, ideologically homogenous and highly liberal content, moderate content, and a condition that included media from each of the three prior conditions. The results demonstrated that exposure to ideological homogeneity did drive attitude extremism in the conservative condition but not in the liberal condition. The moderate condition reduced extremism and the mixed condition demonstrated no significant attitude change. This article concludes that, given media fragmentation, greater extremism is possible. However, this result was only evident in the conservative condition.

Limbaugh's Social Media Nightmare: Facebook and Twitter as Spaces for Political Action

When Rush Limbaugh made his now famous remarks about Sandra Flukes Congressional testimony he set off a social media firestorm. The ensuing backlash cost Limbaugh many prominent advertisers and damaged his public image. In this study, we examine the characteristics that motivated some to engage in the social media conversation while others remained on the sidelines. We find that political information efficacy, or confidence that one has the knowledge and skills necessary to participate, dictate political engagement online. We discuss the implications of this finding for radio, communication and media scholars, and healthy democratic deliberation among young Americans.

Echoes of a Conspiracy: Birthers, Truthers, and the Cultivation of Extremism

A significant number of Americans express sympathies for conspiracy theories about Barack Obamas birth and George Bushs role in the 9/11 attacks. This study sought to test the role of ideological media in perpetuating these beliefs. Specifically, experiments were conducted to determine if ideologically homogeneous media echo-chambers could cultivate belief in conspiracy theories and whether debunking information would reverse this belief. Results found that media echo-chambers increased belief in conspiracy theories though debunking information reversed or minimized this effect. Results confirm the role of ideological media in spreading extremist attitudes but also demonstrate the value of debunking efforts.

To Unite and Divide: The Polarizing Effect of Presidential Debates

This study analyzes the effect of viewing a presidential campaign debate on political polarization. The results of quasi-experimental debate studies of all presidential general election debates in 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012 as well as vice presidential debates in 2008 and 2012 demonstrate a consistent effect: Viewing a debate increased political polarization. However, predebate levels of polarization moderated this effect such that those viewers with very little polarization experienced the most significant increase and those who were highly polarized prior to viewing a debate experienced no significant change. Overall, our findings contribute to a growing body of research on the polarizing effects of campaign communication and raise important questions about how these effects should be interpreted in future research.

Will the “Real” Candidates for President and Vice President Please Stand Up? 2008 Pre- and Post-Debate Viewer Perceptions of Candidate Image

This study of the 2008 first presidential and vice presidential debate builds on past research on viewers’ perceptions of candidate images. Going back to the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960, image research has been conducted in most presidential election cycles. Findings consistently show that viewers enter the debates with perceptions of candidates’ character and leadership qualities and that the debates tend to reinforce rather than change images unless the viewers are undecided or not well informed about a candidate. The results of the 2008 study confirmed trends from past research but also provided some surprises in that most changes in image perception were for senator Joe Biden, the longest-serving public official in the race. The study concludes that media often assume knowledge about candidates that might not exist and that in the 2008 match-ups, the debates did not provide the “game changer” that the McCain-Palin ticket needed to overcome a growing movement toward the Obama-Biden ticket that began shortly before the first debate.

The Polarizing Influence of Fragmented Media: Lessons From Howard Dean

This article argues that digital media, by fragmenting people into ideologically homogeneous interest groups, polarizes society. Further, this polarization risks the transformation of agonistic political engagement into antagonistic ideological combat. As evidence of this danger, the authors examine the case of Howard Deans 2004 presidential primary blogs. In these blogs, a rhetorical vision emerges of a dramatic fight between Deans heroic supporters and the villainous Republicans, media elite, and Democratic challengers. Examples from Barack Obamas 2008 campaign blogs are offered as a counterpoint to the antagonism found in Deans blogs. The authors argue that the type of political drama evident in the Dean blogs invite antagonism that undermines cross-group cooperation and thus weakens democratic culture.

A Multifactor Approach to Candidate Image

Decades of communication research have demonstrated that political candidate images are important predictors of electoral success and that campaign communication influences these image perceptions. However, questions remain about the relative importance of various facets of candidate image, how electoral context and partisanship influence the salience of these facets, and whether privileged classes enjoy presumption in image facets that reinforce their dominant position in politics. These questions require a new approach to image research. We propose a multifactor approach that explores the relative importance of six image traits: character, intelligence, leadership, benevolence, homophily, and charm. The benefits of this approach are illustrated through application to two electoral contexts, the 2012 U.S. presidential election and the 2014 U.S. midterm elections.

A dual-processing approach to the effects of viewing political comedy

Abstract Stephen Colbert’s announcement that he would take over Late Night for David Letterman signaled the end of nearly a decade long project in political satire. The evolution of political humor since Colbert began his satirical news program has been accompanied by a dramatic expansion in scholarly understanding of the effects of political comedy. This study contributes to research on the effects of political comedy by adopting a dual-processing approach to determine if exposure to political comedy can affect the political knowledge and attitudes of viewers. Two experiments were conducted to test the learning and persuasive effects of viewing a single clip from Colbert’s well-documented Super PAC parody. The first demonstrated that exposure to Colbert’s Super PAC programming generated modest short-term issue recognition characteristic of online learning. The second experiment demonstrated a substantial priming effect such that viewing argumentative forewarning in a Colbert segment about Super PAC attack ads significantly diminished the persuasive effect of those attacks.

Gender Identification and Young Voters Predicting Candidate Evaluations and Message Effectiveness

The 2012 election was marked by discussions of women’s issues from abortion to equal pay, and both presidential candidates employed strategies designed to win female voters. Since women vote in larger numbers than men and are more likely to be swing voters, it was imperative that the candidates win support among women. This study draws from group identification theories to better understand the process of gender socialization that influences young women’s perceptions of candidates and the effect of targeted advertising. The findings of this study build upon existing group identification theory and suggest the need for more nuanced theories of female voters that take into consideration identification with one’s gender group as well as beliefs about women’s roles in society. Specifically, this study found that strong gender group identification was associated with higher favorability ratings of Obama. Women holding more egalitarian gender role beliefs were also more likely to rate Obama favorably. Gender group identification did not influence ratings of Romney, but women with more traditional gender role beliefs rated Romney more favorably. No direct support was found for an effect of targeted political advertising in this study, however, we argue that additional research is needed in this area.