the role of communication in the formation of an issue-based citizenry

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The role of communication in theformation of an issue-based citizenryR. Lance Holbert a , William Benoit a , Glenn Hansen a & Wei-ChunWen ba Department of Communication at the University of Missouri-Columbiab Department of Speech Communication at Shih Hsin University,TaiwanPublished online: 21 Oct 2010.

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The Role of Communication in the Formationof an Issue-Based Citizenry

R. Lance Holbert, William L. Benoit, Glenn J. Hansen,and Wei-Chun Wen

Citizens can gain a better understanding of the important issues of a campaign and where candidatesstand on those issues from three primary sources: direct candidate-to-citizen mass media messages (e.g.,political advertisements, debates), news (e.g., newspapers, television news), or discussion with fellowcitizens. The current study conducted a secondary analysis of 1996 American National Election Study(ANES) data to replicate Brians and Wattenberg’s (1996) findings concerning the relative influence ofpolitical advertisements, television news use, and newspaper use on voter issue knowledge and salience inthe 1992 United States presidential campaign. We also analyzed two additional communicationinformation sources, general political discussion and debate viewing. The effects of political advertisementrecall, television news viewing, and newspaper use replicated across election studies. General politicaldiscussion was found to affect both issue knowledge and salience, and when introduced into the regressionanalyses nullifies the predictive power of political advertisement recall for knowledge. Talk’s influence onsalience wanes in subsequent analyses. Viewing the first debate was a strong predictor of issue knowledge,but was not associated with issue salience. Advertisement recall maintained predictive power for issuesalience even after taking into account the other four information sources, and watching the second debatealso predicted salience. The combination of results presents evidence that candidate-to-citizen andcitizen-to-citizen communication play unique roles in determining levels of issue knowledge and salience.

Presidential campaigns are important communicative phenomena (Chaffee, 1974).Citizens are bombarded from Labor Day until Election Day with information

about various political candidates pursuing the highest elected office in the land.Mass communication information sources may be journalistic in nature (e.g.,newspapers and television news) or allow for candidates to speak directly topotential voters (e.g., political advertisements, debates). Yet another informationoutlet is interpersonal discussion, often acting as a complement to media (Chaffee,1982). Each communication outlet represents a unique way by which informationabout candidates makes its way to potential voters.

Some evidence attests to the effects of various sources of information on voterlearning. Chaffee, Zhao, and Leshner (1994) report that television news watchingengendered issue knowledge, and several other studies find newspapers to be astrong source of information (Culbertson & Stempel, 1986; McLeod & McDonald,1985). Other studies support the power of television spots (Benoit, 1999) and debates(Benoit, McKinney, & Holbert, 2001) to create knowledge about candidates andtheir policies. Finally, political discussion has been shown to have an impact on

R. Lance Holbert (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is Assistant Professor, William L. Benoit (Ph.D.,Wayne State University) is Professor, and Glenn J. Hansen is a doctoral candidate in the Department ofCommunication at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Wei-Chun Wen (Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech Communication at Shih Hsin University,Taiwan. We thank Craig Leonard Brians, Department of Political Science, Virginia Tech University, andMartin P. Wattenberg, Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine, for their assistance invariable creation. All correspondence should be directed to the first author at 115 Switzler Hall, Columbia, MO65211.

Communication Monographs, Vol. 69, No. 4, December 2002, pp 296–310Copyright 2002, National Communication Association

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political knowledge (McLeod, Scheufele, & Moy, 1999). These studies do notsimultaneously assess the relative influence of all these information sources acrosselection cycles, however. It is important that political communication scholars assessthe relative influence of each communication outlet, given that no one message typefunctions in a vacuum (Weaver & Drew, 2001).

Some studies do consider more than one source of political information. Pattersonand McClure (1976) found that in 1972 “presidential ads contain substantially moreissue content than network newscasts” (p. 23; cf. Hofstetter, Zukin, & Buss, 1978).Similarly, Kern reported that “by a ratio of four to one, Americans received themajority of their information about candidate positions on the issues from ads ratherthan the news” in the 1984 campaign (1989, p. 47; see also Lichter & Noyes, 1995;Lichter, Noyes, & Kaid, 1999). Just, Crigler, and Wallach (1990) compared televisionspots and debates, reporting that spots created more issue learning than debates.Finally, Brians and Wattenberg (1996), the study replicated and extended in thismanuscript, compared three media types using 1992 American National ElectionsStudy (ANES) data, concluding that watching candidates’ television advertisementsinfluenced issue knowledge and salience more than watching television news orreading newspapers.

We use 1996 ANES data to replicate Brians and Wattenberg’s study of televisionnews, newspapers, and candidate spots, and extend it to include general politicaldiscussion and debate watching. Multiple regression equations mirroring thosecreated by Brians and Wattenberg (1996) were formed to determine if the generalpattern of results found in the 1992 ANES data emerged in the 1996 ANES data.General political discussion and debate viewing were then introduced in subsequentregression equations to assess the role of these information sources.

We begin by reviewing in more detail Brians and Wattenberg (1996) and thenstress the importance of replication. Next, we justify the study of general politicaldiscussion and debate viewing as information sources. Specific hypotheses examinethe influence of the various communication variables on issue knowledge andsalience. Finally, we describe our method, present results, and discuss the implica-tions of this study.

Brians and Wattenberg

Brians and Wattenberg (1996) compared the impact of three important mediasources on issue knowledge and salience in the 1992 general presidential election:television news, newspapers, and candidates’ television spots. They used data fromthe ANES to investigate the relationships between these three sources of informationand voters’ knowledge of the two major party candidates position on various publicpolicy issues and issue salience. Although related, issue salience is conceptuallydistinct from issue knowledge in that salience focuses on the extent to which issuesare important concerns when making a voting decision.

Brians and Wattenberg (1996) found that advertisement watchers were signifi-cantly more informed about the issues in 1992, and that newspaper readership andtelevision news viewing were weaker predictors of knowledge about candidate issuestances than political advertisement recall. They also found that political advertise-ment recall was a significant predictor of issue salience, whereas television news andnewspaper use had no statistically significant effect on this criterion variable.

The general pattern of results obtained by Brians and Wattenberg conforms topast arguments made concerning each of these three mass communication informa-

297ISSUE-BASED CITIZENRY

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tion sources. Jamieson (1996) states that television political advertising is now thesingle most important means by which candidates directly connect with potentialvoters. Candidates use television spot advertisements frequently to send theirmessage to citizens without it having to be interpreted by journalists. Although notall candidate television advertisements are issue based, a majority of spot advertise-ments present candidates’ issue stances (Benoit, 2001). This direct connectionbetween candidates and voters can lead to higher levels of issue knowledge andsalience (Graber, 1993; Just, Crigler, & Wallach, 1990; Patterson & McClure, 1976).In contrast, there is overwhelming evidence that campaign news coverage oftenneglects issues, instead devoting a great deal of time to who is winning the election(e.g., Graber, 1988; Patterson, 1980). This “horse race [coverage] permeates almosteverything the press does in covering elections and candidates” (Robinson &Sheehan, 1983, p. 148). Thus, it is of little surprise that the use of any type of medianews content does little to increase issue knowledge or salience among voters.

Importance of Replication

Replication is central to the mission of social science research (e.g., Campbell &Jackson, 1979; Collins, 1985; Rosenthal, 1976), and is a methodological foundationfor some of the earliest empirical work in political communication (e.g., Lazarsfeld,Berelson, & Gaudet, 1948; see Chaffee & Hochheimer, 1985). Replications allow formore definitive statements to be made about a particular area of research, providinggreater certainty about the relationship being studied (Rosenthal, 1991). As Lamal(1991) states, replication is at the very heart of the scientific method and “necessarybecause our knowledge is corrigible” (p. 31). The utility of a replication is assessed byassessing when, how, and by whom the replication is being conducted. Replicationsthat come early in an area of research have greater usefulness. Those replicationsthat most closely follow previous studies should be seen as better reflecting thenotion of replication as an ideal. Finally, replications performed by differentinvestigators with distinct research agendas are judged as having greater inherentvalue (Rosenthal, 1991).

Based on these criteria, the replication performed in this study offers significantutility for political communication scholars and political scientists alike. This attemptis the first to replicate Brians and Wattenberg (1996), a significant work in the studyof political advertising effects. Moreover, the 1996 ANES data permit creation ofalmost exactly the same set of variables used by Brians and Wattenberg. Finally, theauthors of this replication are communication scholars, whereas Brians and Watten-berg are political scientists. An inherent separation of research agenda comes withthis distinction (e.g., Chaffee, 1974).

General Political Discussion

Scheufele (2000a) argues that several forms of political discussion (e.g., politicaltalk, casual political conversation) can play important and unique roles in furtheringthe cause of democracy. Indeed, Barber (1984) states, “at the heart of a strongdemocracy is talk” (p. 173). General political discussion advances the exchange ofinformation that allows individuals to better understand the influence of majorpolicy issues (Weaver, Zhu, & Willnat, 1992). Past empirical work reveals thatincreased political discussion results in increased issue knowledge (e.g., Scheufele,2000a) and salience (e.g., Wanta & Wu, 1992). General political discussion need not

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be issue- or campaign-specific to have an effect on individual-level understandingabout that issue or campaign. General political discussion casts a wide net ofinfluence, providing citizens with a broad range of understanding and skills fromwhich to better process subsequent information and place it in its proper context(Gamson, 1992; Gastil & Dillard, 1999).

Wyatt, Katz, and Kim (2000) have shown that the level of general politicaldiscussion in America is quite strong, and there is additional evidence that this formof political communication serves an important information function for voters(Kim, Wyatt, & Katz, 1999). Chaffee (1982) argues that interpersonal discussionshould be viewed as a complementary agent to mass media information sources, andthat individuals often seek out both channels (mass and interpersonal) to confirm theaccuracy of an item. Indeed, Delli-Carpini and Williams (1994) found that individu-als often mix information obtained from mediated communication and interper-sonal sources when discussing politics. Given the nature of this relationship, it isimportant that when studying the influence of various communication informationsources on issue knowledge and salience, researchers include not just a set of mediavariables, but interpersonal communication as well.

Political Debates

Evidence shows that watching presidential debates facilitates learning about thecandidates’ issue positions. Research on the presidential debates in 1960 (Katz &Feldman, 1962), 1976; (Sears & Chaffee, 1979), 1988 (Drew & Weaver, 1991), 1992(Chaffee, Zhao, & Leshner, 1994), 1996 (Benoit, Webber, & Berman, 1998), and on aprimary debate (Benoit, McKinney, & Stephenson, 2002) is consistent with thisposition. Jamieson (1987) argues that debates increase knowledge levels becausethese relatively lengthy mass communication events allow citizens to have a level ofaccess to candidates that is unparalleled compared to the rest of the campaign.

Little research has focused on the effect of debate viewing on general issuesalience, but there has been work on an area of study that is grounded in the conceptof salience, agenda setting (see Scheufele [2000b] for discussion of salience asconcept fundamental to agenda setting). Kaid, McKinney, and Tedsco (2000) foundthe first debate of the 1996 general presidential election served an agenda-settingfunction, changing the relative importance of various issues in voters’ minds. Thereis also evidence for the idea that debates produce agenda-setting effects from studiesof debates in 1976 (Swanson & Swanson, 1978), 1988 (Lanoue & Schrott, 1989), 2000(Benoit, McKinney, & Holbert, 2001), and of a primary debate (Best & Hubbard,1999). Just as debates have been shown to influence the degree to which voters thinkcertain issue are important, so too they may influence the general level by whichissues are salient concerns for voters.

Five hypotheses serve as a foundation for this study. These hypotheses reflect adesire to understand the relative effects of multiple campaign communicationinformation sources on issue knowledge and salience. The first hypothesis concernsthe variables studied by Brians and Wattenberg (1996), political advertisementrecall, television news use, and newspaper use. Although Weaver and Drew (2001)argued and found evidence for the claim that the influence of information sourcesvaried from campaign to campaign, their series of studies utilized relatively smallsamples of potential voters from a single American city. We argue that Brians andWattenberg’s use of national sample data is the best evidence of the relativeinfluence of political advertisements, television news, and newspapers on issue


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knowledge and salience. Furthermore, their finding that political advertisementrecall is a better predictor of issue knowledge and salience matches closely pastresearch that has focused on comparative analyses of these multiple informationsources (e.g., Kern, 1989; Patterson & McClure, 1976). Therefore, the following isposited:

H1: The general pattern of results concerning the influence of political advertisement recall,television news use, and newspaper use on voter issue knowledge and salience in 1992 foundby Brians and Wattenberg (1996) will replicate using 1996 ANES data.

Past empirical work concerning the effects of general political discussion on levelsof issue knowledge and salience finds that increased political talk has a positiveinfluence on both criterion variables. Thus, we posit the following hypotheses:

H2: General political discussion positively influences issue knowledge.H3: General political discussion positively influences issue salience.

A wealth of past research shows debate viewing to increase voter knowledge.Moreover, debate viewing has been show to have an agenda-setting effect. Giventhat debate viewing influences personal agenda, it is expected that it will alsoinfluence how much issues are salient concerns for voters’ evaluation of candidates.Thus, it follows that:

H4: Debate viewing positively influences issue knowledge.H5: Debate viewing positively influences issue salience.

Method

Data

The national survey data employed were collected by the Center for PoliticalStudies of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor(see Appendix A for the correlation matrix). The 1996 ANES employed a pre-election interview/post-election re-interview design. A total of 1714 citizens wereinterviewed during the nine weeks prior to November 5, 1996 (Election Day), and atotal of 1534 of the pre-election day respondents were re-interviewed after theelection (retention rate � 89.5%).

Measures1

Dependent variables. Knowledge of candidates’ positions is a 10-item additive indexconsisting of five questions asked for each of the two major party candidates in the1996 presidential general election (Bill Clinton and Robert Dole). Respondents wereasked to specify where Clinton and Dole stood on five issues: abortion, racerelations, government’s role in job creation, balancing business interests withenvironmental concerns, and national defense (see Appendix B). Responses werecoded to form dichotomous measures (correct/incorrect) and the ten items weresummed to create a single measure of knowledge of candidates’ issue positions (� �.64). This knowledge index is consistent with those used in past research (Robinson& Levy, 1986; Zhu, Milavsky, & Biswas, 1994).

Issue salience is a 20-item additive index in which each respondent was asked, “Isthere anything in particular that you like (dislike) about [each candidate] that mightmake you want to vote for (against) him?” Respondents could provide up to fiveresponses to each of the four questions (for and against each of the two candidates).


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Issue-based responses were coded high and all other responses were coded low tocreate a series of dichotomous measures. The twenty potential responses were thensummed to create a single measure of issue salience (� � .66).

Communication variables. This study utilized five communication variables, eachrepresenting a unique source from which potential voters are exposed to informationabout the candidates. Newspaper use and television news use are multiplicativeindices, each consisting of exposure and attention measures for the respective mediaforms (newspaper use, � � .60; television news use, � � .69).

Political advertisement recall is a single dichotomous measure constructed froman open-ended ANES survey question asking if respondents could recall anypolitical advertisements. Respondents were allowed to provide up to five responses.All five open-ended responses were coded by the ANES for substantive presidentialcampaign-specific responses, and a single dichotomous measure (remember presiden-tial advertisement [high]/do not recall presidential advertisement [low]) was createdfrom these five items.

Debate 1 viewing and Debate 2 viewing are multiplicative indices containingexposure and attention items. Respondents were asked in separate questions if theyhad watched the debates. Those who indicated they had watched either of thedebates were then asked for each debate whether they had “watched the entiredebate” or “just part of it” (Debate 1 viewing, � � .89; Debate 2 viewing, � � .90).

Finally, a single-item measure of general political discussion was used for thisstudy. Respondents were first asked, “Do you ever discuss politics with your familyor friends?” Those who responded positively were then asked, “How many days inthe past week did you talk about politics with family or friends?” Those whoresponded negatively to the filter question were coded as a zero for the secondquestion, and a single eight-point scale from “none” to “every day” was created.

Control variables. Six control variables were used by Brians and Wattenberg (1996),and these same variables were constructed for our analyses. Three demographicvariables are included: education, sex, and age. Education is measured on aseven-point scale with possible responses ranging from eight grades or less and nodiploma or equivalency to advanced degree, including LLB. Age is measured inexact years.

Campaign interest is a single-item trichotomous measure with possible responsesbeing not much interested, somewhat interested, and very much interested. Generalpolitical knowledge is a four-item additive index consisting of a series of dichoto-mous measures (correct/incorrect) on which respondents were asked to identifyproperly the political offices held by four individuals: Al Gore, William Rehnquist,Boris Yeltsin, and Newt Gingrich. Finally, a dichotomous measure of pre-electioninterview date (September/ October or November) is included (see Brians &Wattenberg [1996] for rationale for inclusion of control variables in the study ofcandidate-specific issue knowledge and salience).

Analyses

Our secondary analyses of the 1996 ANES data reflect our foci of replicatingBrians and Wattenberg and extending this line of research to include generalpolitical discussion and debate watching. Multiple regression was used to assesswhether the initial set of findings outlined by Brians and Wattenberg (1996) emergedin the 1996 ANES data. Mirroring the regression equations created by Brians and


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Wattenberg, all six control variables and the initial three media items (televisionnews use, newspaper use, and political advertisement recall) were entered in a singleblock. Voters’ knowledge of candidates’ issue stances and issue salience served asrespective dependent variables. A formal assessment of the replication of Brians andWattenberg (1996) study was completed by comparing the standardized betacoefficients obtained for political advertisement recall, television news viewing, andnewspaper use across the two data sets (see Cohen & Cohen, 1983).

Political discussion was then included as an independent variable in the multipleregression equations outlined above. Debate 1 watching was then added to theequations. Given that a majority of the knowledge items and the open-ended issuesalience questions were asked in the pre-election portion of the 1996 ANES, onlythose who were interviewed after the first debate were included in these regressionequations (N � 838). Finally, Debate 2 viewing was added to the multiple regressionequations. Once again, only those who were interviewed after the second debatewere included in these regression analyses (N � 493).

ResultsReplication

The general pattern of results obtained by Brians and Wattenberg (1996) forpolitical advertisement recall, television news viewing, and newspaper use appear inthe 1996 ANES data. Political advertisement recall, relative to either form of newsmedia use, is a statistically significant predictor of both issue knowledge (� � .047,p � .05) and salience (� � .082, p � .01). Overall, the general finding from 1992 that“political advertising contributes to a well-informed electorate” (Brians & Watten-berg, 1996, p. 185) remains true for the 1996 election (see Table 1).

The influence of political advertisement recall, television news use, and newspa-per use on both issue knowledge and salience replicates fully across the 1992 and1996 ANES samples. Statistically insignificant z -scores were found for each compari-son (political ad recall: knowledge � 1.11, p � .25, salience � 1.31, p � .15; TV newsuse: knowledge � 1.86, p � .06, salience � 0.11, p � .90; NP use: knowledge � 1.67,p � .09; salience � 0.55, p � .55). Thus, hypothesis 1 was confirmed.

Political Discussion

Political discussion was a statistically significant predictor of both issue knowledge(� � .07, p � .01) and salience (� � .084, p � .01) (see Table 2), confirming

TABLE 1REPLICATION OF BRIANS AND WATTENBERG USING 1996 ANES DATA

Issue Knowledge Issue Salience

Final � Final �Political Ad Recall .047* .082**Newspaper Use �.019 �.007Television Use �.013 .041Education .237*** .145***Sex (Female) �.052* .041Age �.146** �.099***Campaign Interest .080** .154***General Pol. Knowledge .326*** .118***Interview Date .017 �.012

Note. Coefficients are final standardized �’s. *p � .05, **p � .01, ***p � .001. Issue Knowledge Total R2 �.30***, N � 1496, Issue Salience Total R2 � .12***, N � 1515.


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hypotheses 2 and 3. This channel of communication serves an important democraticfunction by leading to higher levels of knowledge about where the candidates standon the issues and having more issues influencing voters’ decision-making functions.Interestingly, political advertisement recall no longer remains a significant predictorof issue knowledge when controlling for political discussion (� � .041, p � .06).Nevertheless, political advertisement recall remains a statistically significant predic-tor of issue salience (� � .075, p � .01).

Debate Viewing

Viewing of the first debate was a statistically significant predictor of issue knowl-edge (� � .097, p � .01), but not of issue salience (� � �.008, p � .80, see Table 3).Thus, it appears the utility of the first debate for potential voters is in serving ageneral knowledge function, leading individuals to better understand where each ofthe major candidates stand on various issues. It does not aid in making particularissues salient when determining for whom to vote. Political advertisement recallremains a statistically significant predictor of issue salience (� � .080, p � .05).

In contrast to the first debate, viewing the second debate does not predict issueknowledge (� � .040, p � .40). Watching the first debate remains a statistically

TABLE 21996 POLITICAL DISCUSSION


Final � Final �Political Discussion .070** .084**Political Ad Recall .041 .075**Newspaper Use �.029 �.018Television Use �.020 .033Education .230*** .136***Sex (Female) �.051* .041Age �.144*** �.096**Campaign Interest .067* .138***General Pol. Knowledge .323*** .115***Interview Date .021 �.007

Note. Coefficients are final standardized �’s. *p � .05, **p � .01, ***p � .001. Issue Knowledge Total R2 �.31***, N � 1494, Issue Salience Total R2 � .13***, N � 1513.

TABLE 31996 DEBATE 1 VIEWING


Final � Final �Debate 1 Viewing .097** �.008Political Discussion .101** .073Political Ad Recall .054 .080*Newspaper Use �.049 .019Television Use �.050 .008Education .222*** .139**Sex (Female) �.012 .018Age �.135*** �.049Campaign Interest �.002 .148**General Pol. Knowledge .342*** .038

Note. Coefficients are final standardized �’s. *p � .05, **p � .01, ***p � .001. Issue Knowledge Total R2 �.30***, N � 714, Issue Salience Total R2 � .10***, N � 722. Interview date were discarded from theseregression equations. All respondents interviewed after the airing of the presidential debates fall into a singlecategory for the interview date variable.


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significant predictor of issue knowledge, even after taking into account viewing thesecond debate (� � .131, p � .01), and so too does political discussion (� � .103, p �.05). Nevertheless, viewing the second debate does approach statistical significancein predicting issue salience (� � .105, p � .07) (see Table 4).2 In addition, politicaladvertisement recall retains a standerdized regression weight that approaches statis-tical significance for issue salience as well (� � .089, p � .08).

The combination of results for the two debate viewing variables provides partialsupport for hypotheses 3 and 4. Debate 1 viewing positively affects individual-levelcandidate issue knowledge and viewing the second debate influences issue salienceamong potential voters. The fact that viewing the first debate contributes to overallknowledge levels, whereas viewing the second debate affects issue salience, suggeststhat each debate in a campaign may play a distinct role for the electorate. The firstdebate is a forum in which a majority of the electorate gets a first chance to see themajor candidates for an extended period of time discussing their stances of the majorcampaign issues. The second debate does not add substantially to the generalknowledge levels of the electorate, but does affect issue priorities. This result mayoccur because of the candidates not adding new information about their policystances, or that the second debate takes place later in the campaign when a largerpercentage of voters are beginning to think more about how they will vote. Onlyfurther research in this area will begin to assess better whether these unique effectsattributable to the respective debates are evident across election cycles.

Discussion

The general pattern of results points to the interaction between and amongcandidates and citizens during a campaign leading to the formation of an issue-basedelectorate. Viewing the first presidential debate and general political discussion werestatistically significant predictors of voters’ knowledge about the major party candi-dates’ issue stances in the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign, whereas politicaladvertisement recall and viewing the second debate influenced individual-level issuesalience. Three of these four communication variables (i.e., Debate 1 viewing,Debate 2 viewing, advertisement recall) are mass communication outlets that allow

TABLE 41996 DEBATE 2 VIEWING


Final � Final �Debate 2 Viewing .040 .105#Debate 1 Viewing .131** �.045Political Discussion .103* .073Political Ad Recall .055 .089#Newspaper Use �.040 .066Television Use �.032 �.018Education .230*** .093#Sex (Female) .024 .052Age �.163** �.085Campaign Interest �.073 .156**General Pol. Knowledge .360*** .045

Note. Coefficients are final standardized �’s. #p � .10, *p � .05, **p � .01, ***p � .001. Issue Knowledge TotalR2 � .33***, N � 413, Issue Salience Total R2 � .12***, N � 417. Interview date were discarded from theseregression equations. All respondents interviewed after the airing of the presidential debates fall into a singlecategory for the interview date variable.


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candidates to speak directly to voters. The fourth communication channel, generalpolitical discussion, reflects interaction among members of the electorate aboutvarious political issues of the day. The only two communication information sourcesthat did not have a statistically significant effect on the creation of an issue-basedelectorate were the two journalism-based variables, television news viewing andnewspaper use. It is clear from these results that using television news and newspa-pers did not increase voter understanding of the policy stances of the major partycandidates or increase the policy salience. This point mirrors arguments made byBrians and Wattenberg (1996) concerning their findings for the 1992 presidentialelection. If it is a goal of a representative democracy to have a well-informedelectorate, then perhaps one should leave campaigns to candidates and voters (cf.,Zhao & Chaffee, 1995).

These results have powerful implications for understanding presidential cam-paigns. First, they provide further support for the claim that campaign messages thatallow candidates to speak directly to voters, and discussion originating amongvoters, are more important influences on voter issue knowledge and salience thanthe use of newspapers or television news. Given the news’ well-known proclivity foremphasizing “horse race” coverage over issue reporting (see Graber, 1988; Lichter &Noyes, 1995; Patterson, 1980; Robinson & Sheehan, 1983), the greater impact ofcandidate messages is readily understandable. The fact that neither type of news usecontributes to these important criterion variables speaks to the need for reform alongthe lines drawn by the public journalism movement (Holbert & Zubric, 2000), whichseeks to provide citizens with issue-based information they can use to make betterdecisions (Lambeth, Meyer, & Thorson, 1998). The fact that candidate messagesinfluence issue knowledge and issue salience is particularly noteworthy in light of thefact that a majority of voters report that issues are the most important determinant oftheir vote for president (Benoit, 2003).

This replication of Brians and Wattenberg (1996) produced consistent findings forpolitical advertisement recall, television news use, and newspaper use across the1992 and 1996 U.S. presidential elections. Replication is a necessary but notsufficient condition for better understanding the relationships of primary interest topolitical communication scholars. It is also important to stress that the need forreplication must not preclude researchers’ improving on past studies. This studyextends Brians and Wattenberg’s (1996) initial work by including general politicaldiscussion and debate viewing as additional communication information sourcevariables. Inclusion of these variables has led to a revision of Brians and Watten-berg’s initial claim that political advertisement recall is influential in determiningboth issue knowledge and salience, with the influence of this communicationvariable in 1996 falling squarely on issue salience.

The introduction of the interpersonal communication element of general politicaldiscussion proved to be important, especially in terms of better understanding issueknowledge. We recognize the weaknesses in our measurement of this variable, giventhat it did not attempt to measure unique elements of this type of discussion (e.g.,locale, partners, topics, etc., see Scheufele [2000a] for description of general politicaldiscussion as multidimensional concept). Nevertheless, given an inherent connec-tion between mass and interpersonal campaign information sources (e.g., Chaffee,1974), it was important to include this elementary measure of general politicaldiscussion rather than discard an analysis of this channel entirely. Future empirical


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political communication studies would profit by analyzing simultaneously theinfluence of a better measure of political discussion and the multiple mass communi-cation outlets focused upon in this work.

It appears that the two debates of 1996 performed different functions for viewers.Watching Debate 1 had a statistically significant influence on issue knowledge butnot issue salience. Conversely, viewing Debate 2 had more impact on issue saliencethan issue knowledge. It is tempting to suggest that the first debate providedsubstantially more knowledge, overwhelming the effects of spots and news use, andthen, because voters after Debate 1 had already gained substantial issue knowledge,the second debate (and television spots) influenced issue salience rather thanknowledge. Yet, the two debates had different formats (the second debate in 1996was a town hall debate), so it is not possible to attribute these results to temporalorder alone (see Kaid, McKinney, & Tedesco, 2000). Further research with debatesfrom other years could investigate the question of unique effects from differentdebates in the same campaign, but must also address possible confounding variableslike the change of formats. At the very least, our study points to the perils ofgeneralizing about debate viewing effects across all debates in a given campaign.

The finding of a statistically significant pattern of results for several of thecommunication information source variables must be tempered with a generalstatement that none of the effect sizes for these variables on either issue knowledgeor salience are overpowering. It does not follow however, that campaigns fail toserve valuable functions for citizens and our general democratic process. Severalarguments have been made by political scientists speaking to the general lack ofinfluence of campaigns in determining election outcomes (see Gelman & King,[1993] for summary of arguments). Lichtman (1996) has gone so far as to assert that“Despite the hundreds of millions of dollars and months of media attention lavishedon them, general-election campaigns don’t count” (p. 5). The position taken in thispaper is that campaigns are important communication events that allow citizens tomake more informed decisions. To use a sports adage, it is not just who wins or loses,but how you play the game that matters. The delayed outcome of the 2000 UnitedStates presidential election emphasizes the fact that small effects can mean a greatdeal in political elections. A communication perspective on the study of electioncampaigns illustrates this point. Candidate-sponsored political television advertise-ments reach hundreds of thousands of potential voters, and presidential debates alsoattract large audiences. The fact that each of these mass communication outlets havebeen found to help build an issue-based electorate is meaningful and cannot betreated lightly. Even somewhat small effect sizes associated with these variables areimportant determinants of electoral outcomes.

This study presents important results to those scholars interested in news, debates,political advertising, or interpersonal political communication influence. Further-more, it stresses that those scholars interested in these particular communicationvariables can profit by analyzing these information sources as they relate to otherforms of communication in political campaigns. In short, these results can serve asan important contribution to individual news, debates, political advertising, andinterpersonal political discussion studies, and introduce an argument for the utilitythat stems from studying all of these communication variables simultaneously.

Finally, the ANES national random sample survey data are important resourcesfor the study of political communication. Nevertheless, the measures of the mass and


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interpersonal communication variables used by the Center for Political Studies donot match well with the strong conceptualizations our field has produced over thelast half century. Scholars performing secondary analyses of ANES data are con-strained by these measures. We urge the ANES to include stronger communicationmeasures on future surveys, and for there to be greater consistency in the use of thesemeasures across election cycles. Each communication measure used in this study isrelatively weak, and the small effect sizes obtained may be due in part to theseconstrained measures. The fact that a majority of the communication variablesanalyzed had statistically significant effects on issue knowledge or salience speaks tothe power of communication in this context. Only the study of stronger communica-tion measures coupled with national random sample survey data will allow for abetter assessment of the role of communication in building an issue-based electorate.Hopefully, these studies will be performed in the future.

Footnotes1The measures constructed for this study mirror those created by Brians and Wattenberg (1996). Although

the question wordings are similar in the 1992 and 1996 surveys, the questionnaires are not an exact match.There are three deviations in the construction of the 1992 and 1996 measures. Candidate knowledge: Brians andWattenberg (1996) created a similar 8-item index from the 1992 ANES data, with their index consisting ofresponses for Bush and Clinton on the the issues of Abortion, government’s role in job creation, governmentspending, and national defense. Political ad recall: the 1996 question wording is distinct from that used in the1992 ANES study. The 1996 survey asked about the recall of political advertisements in general, whereas the1992 survey asked about the advertisements in the Bush/Clinton presidential campaign in particular. Althoughthe question wording is not identical, the Center for Political Studies made an attempt “to code accurately theopen-ended responses received in 1996 while producing codes that could be aggregated in ways that facilitatesome kinds of comparisons between 1992 and 1996” (American National Election Study, 1996 CodebookAppendix, p. 97). General political knowledge: Brians and Wattenberg (1996) construct a six-item general politicalknowledge scale consisting of a set of four public official-offices held questions and two additional itemsconcerning constitutional knowledge. The 1996 ANES study did not ask any constitution-based knowledgequestions, so the four public official-office questions were used to create our general political knowledge index.

2Given the substantially smaller sample size for the analyses of the Post-Debate 2 viewing regressionequations an � level of p � .10 is reported in Table 4.

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Received: 7 December 2001Revised: 20 June 2002Accepted: 15 October 2002

APPENDIX AZERO-ORDER CORRELATION MATRIX

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 121. Candidate Issue

Knowledge –2. Candidate Issue

Salience .275 –3. Political Ad Recall .139 .155 –4. Television News Use .032 .106 .125 –5. Newspaper Use .116 .102 .074 .356 –6. General Political

Discussion .192 .176 .135 .237 .255 –7. Age �.198 �.084 �.090 .371 .263 .058 –8. Education .425 .240 .112 .036 .202 .191 �.192 –9. Sex �.145 �.005 �.022 �.009 �.125 �.057 .058 �.096 –

10. General PoliticalKnowledge .448 .224 .135 .178 .293 .194 .030 .416 �.179 –

11. Campaign Interest .187 .225 .166 .454 .375 .311 .124 .186 �.065 .255 –12. Interview Date .047 .011 .025 �.049 �.008 �.071 �.138 .055 .019 �.005 �.037 –M 5.70 1.88 0.70 9.15 5.51 1.77 47.54 4.10 1.55 2.21 2.04 0.57SD 2.36 1.99 0.83 8.84 8.07 2.18 17.41 1.65 0.50 1.10 0.71 0.49

Note. Analysis of debate viewing variables focused on smaller portion of the sample. Zero-order correlations forthe two debate variables with the two dependent measures are as follows for the respective samples used fordebate regression equations (Debate 1 viewing: M � 0.59, SD � 0.75; Issue Knowledge, r � .118, IssueSalience, r � .076; Debate 2 viewing: M � 0.52, SD � 0.72; Issue Knowledge, r � .101, Issue Salience r � .181).


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APPENDIX BQUESTION WORDING FOR KNOWLEDGE OF CANDIDATES’ ISSUE STANCES

1. Where would you place Bill Clinton (Bob Dole) on this scale?1. Government should make every effort to help blacks7. Government should not make special effort to help blacks2, 3, or 4 correct for Clinton (63%); 4, 5, or 6 correct for Dole (66%).

2. Where would you place Bill Clinton (Bob Dole) on this scale?1. Never permitted2. Rape, incest, danger only3. Clear need4. Always as personal choice4 correct for Clinton (50%); 2 correct for Dole (42%)

3. Where would you place Bill Clinton (Bob Dole) on this scale?1. Greatly decrease defense spending7. Greatly increase defense spending3, 4, or 5 correct for Clinton (62%); 4, 5, or 6 correct for Dole (67%)

4. Where would you place Bill Clinton (Bob Dole) on this scale?1. Tougher regulations on business needed to protect the environment7. Regulations to protect environment already too much of a burden on business.2, 3, or 4 correct for Clinton (67%); 5 or 6 correct for Dole (39%)

5. Where would you place Bill Clinton (Bob Dole) on this scale?1. Government should see to a job and good standard of living7. Government should let each person get ahead on own2 or 3 correct for Clinton (42%); 5, 6, or 7 correct for Dole (62%)


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the role of communication in the formation of an issue-based citizenry

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