PS270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Push Poll, Political Campaign, Berlin Wall
Document Summary
Learning; agenda control; issue ownership; riding-the-wave; attack ads and voter turnout; Media critics have argued that campaigns are not especially effective at informing voters. News coverage is said to not focus on issues and political advertising to be misleading. A variety of researchers have conducted cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys of citizens over the course of presidential and senate elections measuring political knowledge (e. g. franklin, 1991; alvarez, 1997; bartels, 1988) This research indicates that people do become more knowledgeable about candidates" issue stands and political ideology. Knowledge gains are especially large in highly competitive races (kahn & kenney, 1997) News coverage of issues can influence the perceived national importance of issues (agenda setting) and the use of these issues in candidate evaluations (priming) Political campaign organizations also try to influence the impact of issues by concentrating advertisements and other political communications on certain issues that they think will be advantageous.
