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2006 - Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

Voter Learning in the 2004 Presidential Election: Did the Media Matter?

This study examines the relationships of exposure and attention to various news media, including the Internet, with information learned about the issue positions of candidates George Bush and John Kerry, interest in the 2004 election campaign, and intention to vote among a random sample of adult residents of Indiana who were interviewed by telephone in October 2004. The results are compared with our previous studies of the 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000 U.S. presidential elections. In general, our studies suggest that attention to television news, televised debates, and now Internet news are important predictors, or at least correlates, of voter learning of candidate issue positions and voter interest in the election campaigns. These findings contradict the hypothesis that increased news media use leads to increased voter apathy and alienation from the political process.

2007 - Perspectives on Politics

How Voters Decide: Information Processing in Election Campaigns

How Voters Decide: Information Processing in Election Campaigns. By Richard R. Lau and David P. Redlawsk. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 366p. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paper. Models of voting behavior go a long way toward predicting the choices individuals make in elections. And, for practical purposes, prediction is critical, as it gives us important insight into the potential outcomes that might ensue, given certain conditions. However, research on information processing is increasingly focusing our attention more explicitly on understanding the process by which voters make decisions rather than focusing exclusively on the decisions themselves. This is exactly what Richard Lau and David Redlawsk do in How Voters Decide. This book departs from previous information processing research because not only do the authors propose a comprehensive process-oriented model of voter decision making, but they also test the various steps in the process using data gathered in an explicitly dynamic format.