Daniel E. Bergan

Does Grassroots Lobbying Work? A Field Experiment Measuring the Effects of an e-Mail Lobbying Campaign on Legislative Behavior

There are few reliable estimates of the effect of grassroots lobbying on legislative behavior. The analysis in this article circumvents methodological problems that plague existing studies by randomly assigning legislators to be contacted by a grassroots e-mail lobbying campaign. The experiment was conducted in the context of a grassroots lobbying campaign through cooperation with a coalition of groups lobbying a state legislature. The results show that grassroots lobbying by e-mail has a substantial influence on legislative voting behavior. The article concludes with a number of possible extensions of the studys design to other forms of lobbying and other problems in political science.

Does Knowledge of Constitutional Principles Increase Support for Civil Liberties? Results from a Randomized Field Experiment

For decades, scholars have argued that education causes greater support for civil liberties by increasing students’ exposure to political knowledge and constitutional norms, such as due process and freedom of expression. Support for this claim comes exclusively from observational evidence, principally from cross-sectional surveys. This paper presents the first large-scale experimental test of this proposition. More than 1000 students in 59 high school classrooms were randomly assigned to an enhanced civics curriculum designed to promote awareness and understanding of constitutional rights and civil liberties. The results show that students in the enhanced curriculum classes displayed significantly more knowledge in this domain than students in conventional civics classes. However, we find no corresponding change in the treatment group’s support for civil liberties, a finding that calls into question the hypothesis that knowledge and attitudes are causally connected.

CITIZEN JOURNALISM SITES AS INFORMATION SUBSTITUTES AND COMPLEMENTS FOR UNITED STATES NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

A content analysis of 48 citizen journalism sites, 86 weekly newspapers and 138 daily newspapers indicates that citizen journalism sites differed enough in six local government content attributes to conclude that citizen journalism sites are, at best, imperfect information substitutes for most newspapers. However, the data also indicate that some large-city citizen journalism sites complement newspapers by increasing the number of news stories and the amount of opinion available about local government. The results also found differences between citizen news sites and citizen blog sites. Few citizen journalism sites outside of large metropolitan cities covered local government.

The Politics of Requesting Appointments: Congressional Requests in the Appointment and Nomination Process

There is persistent debate about who most influences the federal appointment process, especially whether the executive branch staffs the federal bureaucracy with individuals loyal to the White House or relies on the process as an accommodation to important political players, especially members of Congress. Yet, people still know little about the role members of Congress play in the process of shaping the prenomination environment. In this article, the authors address this debate by using unique archival data from the Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford Presidential Libraries to identify which legislators contacted the president about a specific nomination or appointment request and under what conditions these requests were successful. The authors find that legislator resources, Senate membership, and those closer ideologically to the president are related both to the number of requests made and to the number of successful appointment or nomination requests granted. The results suggest that the president relies on members of Congress for credible information about staffing administrative positions, but they appoint or nominate individuals that are in their own interest, not necessarily to accommodate Congress.

Online Fund-Raising and Contributors in the 2004 Presidential Campaign

Online fund-raising for political campaigns has grown substantially in recent election cycles, raising new and important questions about how this phenomenon is affecting the composition of the donor pool. In this article, the authors use data from a survey of donors in the 2004 presidential election to compare the demographic, socioeconomic, and political characteristics of online and offline donors. The authors find mostly similarities between the two donor pools, although online donors tend to be younger and more politically active. The results also show that candidates on the left were more successful at motivating online contributions in 2004.

How Radio News Uses Sources to Cover Local Government News and Factors Affecting Source Use

This study of source use in news coverage of local governments by 198 radio stations indicates that radio news stories had fewer and less diverse sources than daily newspaper stories. The differences in source use between radio and weekly newspaper stories were not as great. Predictor variables related to source use indicated that local government stories from publicly supported and TV–radio cross-owned radio stations included more sources and more diverse sources than found in stories from other types of stations. Radio news competition was slightly and positively correlated with greater numbers of sources and source diversity.

Dailies Still Do 'Heavy Lifting' in Government News, despite Cuts

This content analysis finds that daily newspapers continue to inform citizens about important government matters, despite cuts in resources. Articles in dailies contain more sources with greater diversity than do articles in weeklies.

Issue Ads and the Health Reform Debate

The public debate over health care reform in 2009 was carried out partly through issue advertisements aired online and on television. Did these advertisements alter the course of the debate over health care reform? While millions of dollars are spent each year on issue ads, little is known about their effects. Results from a naturalistic online experiment on the effects of issue ads suggest that they can influence the perceived importance of an issue and perceptions of politicians associated with the featured policy while influencing policy support only among those low in political awareness.

Can Online Videos Increase Turnout? A Field Experiment Testing the Effect of Peer-Created Online Videos on Youth Turnout

Previous field experimental studies of the effects of e-mails on turnout show that e-mails are not effective at boosting turnout, even among populations that frequently use e-mail. However, these studies have primarily relied on text-only e-mails. The authors attempt to increase registration and turnout among university undergraduates by sending them videos created by fellow students encouraging students to register and vote. These videos are created by peers, are more engaging than text, and may appeal to individuals who are not likely to vote anyway. Field experimental results show that sending a video by e-mail did not increase registration or turnout. The authors conclude with a discussion of other methods that may be effective in increasing turnout in an online campaign.

Mapping Political Attitudes: The Impact of Concept Mapping on Ideological Constraint

People with more political knowledge tend to have more coherent ideologies (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996; Judd & Krosnick, 1989; Stimson, 1975; Zaller, 1992). Drawing on prominent theories of attitude structure (e.g., Dinauer & Fink, 2005; Hunter, Levine & Sayers, 1976), we propose an explanation for this relationship, testing whether people who spend time thinking about how political concepts relate to one another are more likely to exhibit ideologically coherent attitudes (Judd & Krosnick, 1989). We find that participants who are instructed to participate in an exercise that requires them to think about how political concepts are related exhibit greater correlations between social- and economic-policy attitudes than nonparticipants and find some evidence that participants’ policy attitudes are more consistent over time. Contrary to expectations, there was no evidence of greater consistency between policy attitudes and underlying values, including party identification.