Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication

David Johann; Katharina Kleinen von Königslöw; Sylvia Kritzinger; Kathrin Thomas

doi:10.1080/10584609.2017.1339222

Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication

David Johann, Katharina Kleinen von Königslöw, Sylvia Kritzinger^*, Kathrin Thomas

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

25 Citations (Scopus)

4 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

An increasing number of citizens change and adapt their party preferences during the electoral campaign. We analyze which short-term factors explain intra-campaign changes in voting preferences, focusing on the visibility and tone of news media reporting and party canvassing. Our analyses rely on an integrative data approach, linking data from media content analysis to public opinion data. This enables us to investigate the relative impact of news media reporting as well as party communication. Inherently, we overcome previously identified methodological problems in the study of communication effects on voting behavior. Our findings reveal that campaigns matter: Especially interpersonal party canvassing increases voters’ likelihood to change their voting preferences in favor of the respective party, whereas media effects are limited to quality news outlets and depend on individual voters’ party ambivalence.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	261-286
Number of pages	26
Journal	Political Communication
Volume	35
Issue number	2
Early online date	8 Sept 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2017.1339222
Publication status	Published - Feb 2018

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their close reading and all suggestions to improve our work. All authors have equally contributed to this publication; authorship is in alphabetical order.

Funding: This work is supported by the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES), a National Research Network (NFN) sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [S10902-G11].

Keywords

integrated data design
interpersonal and impersonal party communication
intra-campaign effects
media effects
persuasion
voting behavior

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10.1080/10584609.2017.1339222Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Johann-et-al-intracampaign-changes-political-communication-vor
Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC This is an Open Access article. Non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed, cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way, is permitted. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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Cite this

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title = "Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication",

abstract = "An increasing number of citizens change and adapt their party preferences during the electoral campaign. We analyze which short-term factors explain intra-campaign changes in voting preferences, focusing on the visibility and tone of news media reporting and party canvassing. Our analyses rely on an integrative data approach, linking data from media content analysis to public opinion data. This enables us to investigate the relative impact of news media reporting as well as party communication. Inherently, we overcome previously identified methodological problems in the study of communication effects on voting behavior. Our findings reveal that campaigns matter: Especially interpersonal party canvassing increases voters{\textquoteright} likelihood to change their voting preferences in favor of the respective party, whereas media effects are limited to quality news outlets and depend on individual voters{\textquoteright} party ambivalence.",

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note = "Acknowledgements. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their close reading and all suggestions to improve our work. All authors have equally contributed to this publication; authorship is in alphabetical order. Funding: This work is supported by the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES), a National Research Network (NFN) sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [S10902-G11].",

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AU - Thomas, Kathrin

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Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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Kathrin Thomas

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Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication

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Bibliographical note

Keywords

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Kathrin Thomas

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