Presidential campaigning on the web: The influence of candidate world wide web sites in the 2000 general election

This study investigated the short term effects of viewing presidential candidate World Wide Web (WWW) sites (George W. Bush or Al Gore) on attitudes toward issues and character. Participants spent 15 minutes viewing either Bush's or Gore's site (a control group viewed a nonpolitical Web page). Results reveal that these sites do influence voters. Those who viewed Gore's WWW site (compared to the control group) had more positive perceptions of Gore's character, favorable perceptions of Bush's character, policy positions, and leadership, and lower ratings of Bush on a global feelings category. Gore site viewers, however, did not have more positive perceptions of Gore's policy positions or leadership, and they did not rate him higher on a global feeling measure (compared with the control group). No significant differences occurred for those who viewed Bush's site (compared with the control group) on any dependent variable. Thus, although we should not assume that Web sites will necessarily influence voters, it is clear that they can do so.

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