Televised Election Debates International Perspectives
This book examines the present and future of televised election debates, from the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debate of 1960 to the age of digital interactive multimedia. A number of contributors, from various perspectives - debate producers, participants
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Edited by
Stephen Coleman
Televised Electio n Debates
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Televised Election Debates International Perspectives Edited by Stephen Colernan
Director of Studies The Hansatd Society [ot ParliamentaryGovemment London
Foreword by David Butler Nuffield College Oxford
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Figure 2.1
Debates
1988
o Speeches
1992
Historically, levels of comparative discourse have been the highest
in debates
views. Comparative discourse, which both indicts an opponent and makes the case for the speaker, is helpful to voters because it enables them to compare and contrast the candidates with relative ease. The timing of debates also contributes to their value as a form of cornmunication. During the early stages of a presidential campaign, only political junkies are likely to pay close attention to the candidates. Typically, it is not until late September or early Ocrober that most of the electorate begin to focus on the campaign. Unfortunately, those who get involved late are likely to miss the basic candidate information that the press reported in the prima ries. To reporters on the campaign trail, issue positions first articulated in the spring are not news in the autumn. Televised debates in late September and early Ocrober provide and opportunity for the candldates to recap their basic issue positions. In turn, debates provide valuable information that many citizens might not know. In other words, voters learn from debates, at least in part, because debates provide new information. This explains why controls for education, political interest, and, particularly, exposure to the news media fall to eliminate a learning effect, According to CBS News polls, the percentage of registered voters who reported paying a lot of attention to the 1992 presidential campaign increased from only 17 per cent in Ianuary and 29 per cent during the March primaries, to 50 per cent in early September. In january 1996,
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Televised Eleetion Debates
18 per cent of registered voters said they were paying close attention; that numb er increased to 2S per cent in March and 39 per cent in early September. Noting similar survey data, Jamieson and Birdsell (1988) argued that one key to debates' educational power is the mismatch between the way the press covers and the public in turn processes the issue information in presidential campaigns. Debates are effective educators because they provide basic issue information when voters are most likely to tune in to politics - during the general election. On the other hand, most news outlets, which begin following the campaign months before the prima ries, use general election coverage to report not policy positions, but what (if anything) is new about these positions. During the general election, in the absence of debates, 'those who lack the basic information have no ready way of getting it when they need it.' (p.122) And even when infor
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