Browsing by Subject "Elections--United States"

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Beyond the horse race : the content and consequence of issue news in American elections
(2006) Hayes, Daniel William; Shaw, Daron R., 1966-
While the tendency of journalists to focus on the “horse race” aspects of political campaigns is well documented, less is known about the media’s coverage of issues in American elections. I argue that issue news is more prevalent and relevant that often considered and demonstrate how it has consequences for public opinion. Augmenting the traditional journalistic explanations of news content with an explicit consideration of political factors, I show that issues appear in the news more frequently than is commonly assumed and that their coverage is affected by the political environment. Ultimately, the effects of news content on the public are contingent on candidate communications and individual-level factors. In doing so, I conduct three empirical investigations. First, in a study of television and news coverage of the 1996 and 2000 presidential campaigns, I find the media’s willingness to reflect candidate issue emphases fluctuates across the course of the campaign and in response to candidate behavior. Second, the favorability of news coverage, as evidenced in the 1992-2000 presidential elections, is affected not only by conventional explanations of media content, but by the issue-handling reputations of the political parties. When the news focuses on an issue “owned” by a candidate’s party, his coverage is more positive than when his opponent’s issues command the media’s attention. Finally, issue news is not without consequence. Using an experimental design during the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election, I find the media to be more influential agenda setters than candidates. Not surprisingly, the strongest effects emerge when news reports and campaign communications converge on the same topic, suggesting the benefit to candidates when the media reflect their issue priorities. The effects also depend on a voter’s partisanship and trust in the media. The result of this dissertation is a clearer understanding of the role of the news media in campaigns. At one level, the project speaks to the literature on journalist behavior and the content of election news. In addition, the findings broaden our understanding of the flow of information in elections and the critical linkages between political elites and the masses, the lynchpin of the democratic process.
The role of previous military service in American electoral politics
(2005) Teigen, Jeremy Michael; Shaw, Daron R., 1966-
A recurring feature of American elections is previous military service, for both candidates and the electorate. Despite a strict tradition of civilian supremacy over the military, the US exhibits a recurring magnetism toward leaders with martial pedigree. In the electorate, civilian veterans are an oft-cited voting bloc in primary and general elections with uncertain impact, often garnering direct appeals from candidates and media attention. This dissertation consists of chapters dealing with the intersection of military service and politics in its manifestations across different arenas of electoral competition: the use of previous military service by presidential and congressional campaigns, and in the electorate by measuring, analyzing, and explaining veterans’ electorate turnout, political attitudes, vote choices, and partisan preferences. Keywords: military veterans, political participation, voting, cohort analysis, turnout, public opinion, presidential campaigns, congressional campaigns, interest groups.
The untold story : portrayals of electoral participation in print news coverage of American presidential campaigns, 1948-2004
(2008-08) Han, Soo-Hye; Jarvis, Sharon E., 1969-
This dissertation was inspired by two conflicting patterns: the United States is very proud of its democratic tradition, yet has the second lowest voter turnout rate in the world. In order to better understand America’s electoral hypocrisy and the decline in voter turnout, this dissertation examined how Americans have been encouraged to think about the vote, the voting process and their roles as voters through news media. Specifically, this dissertation asked: (1) How have voters and voting been portrayed in American newspapers from 1948-2004? (2) Have these portrayals changed over time? And (3) what are some potential implications of these patterns for the electorate? To answer these questions, an extensive content analysis and a set of experiments were conducted. In the content analysis, several electoral key terms pertaining to the electoral participation (Vote, Voter, Voting, Election and Electorate--and their derivatives) were located in the Campaign Mapping Project text-base and were subjected to quantitative and qualitative coding techniques. Findings indicate that while (1) voters were increasingly mentioned in print newspapers over time, (2) they were not featured positively, (3) were cast in the shadow of elites, (4) were rarely reminded of democratic responsibilities, and (5) were not connected to the past or each other in election print news coverage. In addition to these dominant patterns, the data also revealed that voters were more likely to be featured as (1) empowered agents in the democratic system between 1948-1968, (2) subsumed under opinion polls and as pawns of elites between 1972-2000, and (3) faced with challenges in the electoral process in 2004. Two on-line experiments (one with the general population and another with college students) were conducted to test the effects of the empowered portrayal of voters found in1948-1968. Results indicated that the empowered portrayal of voters increased citizens’ participatory intentions and trust in news media (college students reported these positive outcomes and more). These findings suggest that the way print news media cover voters and electoral participation may have important socialization effects on citizens’ political attitudes as well as some important practical implications for the press and journalists.