Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T06:02:57.739Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dynamics of Collective Deliberation in the 1996 Election: Campaign Effects on Accessibility, Certainty, and Accuracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2000

Robert Huckfeldt ,
John Sprague  and
Jeffrey Levine
Robert Huckfeldt
Affiliation:
Indiana University
John Sprague
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
Jeffrey Levine
Affiliation:
KRC Research
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We examine the effectiveness of political communication and deliberation among citizens during a presidential election campaign. In order for communication to be effective, messages conveyed through social interaction must be unambiguous, and the recipient must readily, confidently, and accurately perceive the intent of the sender. We address a number of factors that may influence communication effectiveness: the accessibility and extremity of political preferences, the distribution of preferences in the surrounding environment, disagreement between the senders and receivers of political messages, and the dynamic of the election campaign. The analysis is based on a study of the 1996 campaign, which interviewed citizens and discussion partners between March 1996 and January 1997. The citizens are a random sample of registered voters in the Indianapolis and St. Louis areas, and these registered voters identified the discussion partners as people with whom they discuss either “government, elections, and politics” or “important matters.”

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 94 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 641 - 651
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bassili, John N. 1993. “Response Latency versus Certainty as Indexes of the Strength of Voting Intentions in a CATI Survey.” Public Opinion Quarterly 57 (1): 54–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bassili, John N. 1996. “Meta-Judgmental versus Operative Indexes of Psychological Attributes: The Case of Measures of Attitude Strength.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71 (4): 637–53.10.1037/0022-3514.71.4.637CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and McPhee, William N. 1954. Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Election. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Burt, Ronald S. 1986. “A Note on Sociometric Order in the General Social Survey Network Data.” Social Networks 8 (2): 149–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Fabrigar, Leandre R., and Krosnick, Jon A. 1995. “Attitude Importance and the False Consensus Effect.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 21 (5): 468–79.10.1177/0146167295215005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fazio, Russell H. 1990. “A Practical Guide to the Use of Response Latency in Social Psychological Research.” In Research Methods in Personality and Social Psychology, ed. Hendrick, Clyde and Clark, Margaret S. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Pp. 74–97.Google Scholar
Fazio, Russell H. 1995. “Attitudes as Object-Evaluation Associations: Determinants, Consequences, and Correlates of Attitude Accessibility.” In Attitude Strength: Antecedents and Consequences, ed. Petty, Richard E. and Krosnick, Jon A. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 247–82.Google Scholar
Festinger, Leon. 1957. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Finifter, Ada. 1974. “The Friendship Group as a Protective Environment for Political Deviants.” American Political Science Review 68 (2): 607–25.10.1017/S0003055400117423CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, and King, Gary. 1993. “Why Are American Presidential Election Campaign Polls So Variable When Votes Are So Predictable?” British Journal of Political Science 23 (4): 409–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granberg, Donald. 1987. “Candidate Preference, Membership Group, and Estimates of Voting Behavior.” Social Cognition 5 (4): 323–35.10.1521/soco.1987.5.4.323CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huckfeldt, Robert, Beck, Paul Allen, Dalton, Russell J., Levine, Jeffrey, and Morgan, William. 1998a. “Ambiguity, Distorted Messages, and Nested Environmental Effects on Political Communication.” Journal of Politics 60 (4): 996–1030.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huckfeldt, Robert, Levine, Jeffrey, Morgan, William, and Sprague, John. 1998b. “Election Campaigns, Social Communication, and the Accessibility of Perceived Discussant Preference.” Political Behavior 20 (4): 263–94.10.1023/A:1024866630373CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huckfeldt, Robert, and Sprague, John. 1995. Citizens, Politics, and Social Communication. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krosnick, Jon A., and Petty, Richard E. 1995. “Attitude Strength: An Overview.” In Attitude Strength: Antecedents and Consequences, ed. Petty, Richard E. and Krosnick, Jon A. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
Latane, Bibb. 1981. “The Psychology of Social Impact.” American Psychologist 36 (4): 343–56.10.1037/0003-066X.36.4.343CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKuen, Michael B. 1990. “Speaking of Politics: Individual Conversational Choice, Public Opinion, and the Prospects for Deliberative Democracy.” In Information and Democratic Politics, ed. Ferejohn, John A. and Kuklinski, James H. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Pp. 59–99.Google Scholar
Rogers, William. 1993. “Regression Standard Errors in Clustered Samples.” Stata Technical Bulletin 13 (May): 19–23.Google Scholar
Ross, Lee, Bierbrauer, Gunter, and Hoffman, Susan. 1976. “The Role of Attribution Processes in Conformity and Dissent.” American Psychologist 31 (2): 148–57.10.1037/0003-066X.31.2.148CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M., Brody, Richard A., and Tetlock, Philip E. 1991. Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511720468CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel. 1974. “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” Science 185 (September 27): 1124–31.10.1126/science.185.4157.1124CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weisberg, Herbert F. 1980. “A Multidimensional Conceptualization of Party Identification.” Political Behavior 2 (1): 33–60.10.1007/BF00989755CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.