Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T15:07:07.519Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Issue Priming Revisited: Susceptible Voters and Detectable Effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2017

J. Scott Matthews
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is widely claimed that campaign communications direct voter attention to the considerations that campaigns emphasize, a phenomenon termed ‘priming’. In two recent studies, however, Gabriel Lenz concludes that reanalysis of key instances of priming in the literature shows that priming of views on policy questions, or ‘issues’, is very rare. This article revisits issue priming during elections by incorporating individuals who are largely excluded from Lenz’s analyses: respondents who, in one or more waves of the panel surveys analyzed, did not report a major-party vote (or vote intention) when interviewed. Based on data collected during six national elections, the article finds clear evidence of issue priming. The findings have implications for the study of campaign effects, media influence and voting behavior generally.

Keywords

primingissue votinglearningcampaign effects
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , April 2019 , pp. 513 - 531
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

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.)

Footnotes

*

Department of Political Science, Memorial University (email: [email protected]). The original version of this article was prepared for presentation at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL in April 2014. The author thanks Richard Johnston, Laron Williams, Austin Hart, Amanda Bittner, Mark Pickup and Alan Jacobs for helpful comments on earlier versions; Denver McNeney for research assistance; and five anonymous reviewers for their criticism and advice. Data replication sets are available at http://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/BJPolS and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0007123416000715.

References

Arceneaux, Kevin. 2006. Do Campaigns Help Voters Learn? A Cross-National Analysis. British Journal of Political Science 36 (1):159–173.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2006. Priming and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. In Capturing Campaign Effects, edited by Henry E. Brady and Richard Johnston, 78–112. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Berelson, Bernard, Lazarsfeld, Paul, and McPhee, William. 1954. Voting. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J. 2004. Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Participation in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E., Verba, Sidney, and Schlozman, Kay L.. 1995. Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation. American Political Science Review 89 (2):271–294.Google Scholar
Claassen, Ryan L. 2011. Political Awareness and Electoral Campaigns: Maximum Effects for Minimum Citizens? Political Behavior 33 (2):203–223.Google Scholar
Druckman, James N., and Holmes, Justin W.. 2004. Does Presidential Rhetoric Matter? Priming and Presidential Approval. Presidential Studies Quarterly 34 (4):755–778.Google Scholar
Fournier, Patrick, Cutler, Frederick, and Soroka, Stuart. 2013. Who Responds to Election Campaigns? The Two-Moderator Model Revisited, Canadian Election Study Working Paper No. 2013-01. Available at http://ces-eec.arts.ubc.ca/english-section/working-papers/, accessed 24 January 2017.Google Scholar
Fournier, Patrick, Nadeau, Richard, Blais, André, Gidengil, Elisabeth, and Nevitte, Neil. 2004. Time-of-Voting Decision and Susceptibility to Campaign Effects. Electoral Studies 23 (4):661–681.Google 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 23:409–451.Google Scholar
Hart, Austin, and Middleton, Joel A.. 2014. Priming Under Fire: Reverse Causality and the Classic Media Priming Hypothesis. The Journal of Politics 76 (2):581–592.Google Scholar
Hillygus, D. Sunshine. 2007. The Dynamics of Voter Decision Making Among Minor-Party Supporters: The 2000 Presidential Election in the United States. British Journal of Political Science 37 (2):225–244.Google Scholar
Hillygus, D. Sunshine, and Shields, Todd. 2008. The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Presidential Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Holbrook, Thomas. 1996. Do Campaigns Matter? Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, and Kinder, Donald. 1987. News That Matters: Television and American Opinion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Richard. 2002. How Campaigns Matter in Canada: Priming and Learning as Explanations for the Reform Party’s 1993 Campaign Success. Canadian Journal of Political Science 35 (2):383–408.Google Scholar
Johnston, Richard, Blais, André, Brady, Henry, and Crête, Jean. 1992. Letting the People Decide: Dynamics of a Canadian Election. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, Richard, Hagen, Michael, and Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. 2004. The 2000 Presidential Election and the Foundations of Party Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kelleher, Christine A., and Wolak, Jennifer. 2006. Priming Presidential Approval: The Conditionality of Issue Effects. Political Behavior 28 (3):193–210.Google Scholar
Kim, Sei-Hill, Han, Miejeong, and Scheufele, Dietram A.. 2010. Think About Him This Way: Priming, News Media, and South Koreans’ Evaluation of the President. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 22 (3):299–319.Google Scholar
Lavine, Howard. 2001. The Electoral Consequences of Ambivalence Toward Presidential Candidates. American Journal of Political Science 45 (4):915–929.Google Scholar
Lenz, Gabriel. 2009. Learning and Opinion Change, Not Priming: Reconsidering the Priming Hypothesis. American Journal of Political Science 53 (4):821–837.Google Scholar
Lenz, Gabriel. 2012. Follow the Leader? How Voters Respond to Politicians Policies and Performance. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Matthews, J. Scott, and Johnston, Richard. 2010. The Campaign Dynamics of Economic Voting. Electoral Studies 29:13–24.Google Scholar
McGraw, Kathleen M. and Ling, Cristina. 2003. Media Priming of Presidential and Group Evaluations. Political Communication 20 (1):23–40.Google Scholar
Miller, Joanne M. and Krosnick, Jon A.. 1996. News Media Impact on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: A Program of Research on the Priming Hypothesis. In Political Persuasion and Attitude Change, edited by Diana Mutz and Paul Sniderman, 79–100. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Joanne M. and Krosnick, Jon A.. 2000. News Media Impact on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Politically Knowledgeable Citizens are Guided by a Trusted Source. American Journal of Political Science 44:301–315.Google Scholar
Peterson, David. 2015. Uncertainty and Campaigns: The Psychological Mechanism Behind Campaign-Induced Priming. American Politics Research 43 (1):109–143.Google Scholar
Rudolph, Thomas J. 2011. The Dynamics of Ambivalence. American Journal of Political Science 55 (3):561–573.Google Scholar
Rudolph, Thomas J., and Popp, Elizabeth. 2007. An Information Processing Theory of Ambivalence. Political Psychology 28 (5):563–585.Google Scholar
Schmitt-Beck, Rüdiger, and Partheymüller, Julia. 2012. Why Voters Decide Late: A Simultaneous Test of Old and New Hypotheses at the 2005 and 2009 German Federal Elections. German Politics 21 (3):299–316.Google Scholar
Stevens, Daniel, and Karp, Jeffrey A.. 2012. Leadership Traits and Media Influence in Britain. Political Studies 60 (4):787–808.Google Scholar
Takens, Janet, Kleinnijenhuis, Jan, Van Hoof, Anita, and Van Atteveldt, Wouter. 2015. Party Leaders in the Media and Voting Behavior: Priming Rather Than Learning or Projection. Political Communication 32 (2):249–267.Google Scholar
Tesler, Michael. 2015. Priming Predispositions and Changing Policy Positions: An Account of When Mass Opinion is Primed or Changed. American Journal of Political Science 59 (5):806–824.Google Scholar
Togeby, Lise. 2007. The Context of Priming. Scandinavian Political Studies 30 (3):345–376.Google Scholar
Wolf, Fredric M. 1986. Meta-Analysis: Quantitative Methods for Research Synthesis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Matthews supplementary material

Appendix

Download Matthews supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 558.1 KB