{"title":"Do election polls increase individual understanding of politics?","authors":"Ching-Hsing Wang, D. Weng","doi":"10.1080/00323187.2021.1931373","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Election polls have been widely used to probe and understand the public’s political attitudes and behaviour. However, they might simultaneously motivate people to seek information about the questions they do not know when they are asked in the polls. Given that past studies have ignored the role of polls in motivating individual information seeking, this study aims to examine the effect of polls on individual knowledge of the electoral system. Specifically, this study addresses whether individuals’ participation in the election poll would increase their understanding of the electoral system of the legislative election in Taiwan. Using survey data from Taiwan’s Election and Democratisation Study (TEDS) 2016 presidential and legislative elections, this study finds that people who are asked questions about the legislative election in the first survey are more likely to provide correct answers in the second survey compared to their counterparts. The findings imply that election polls are not only tools for understanding public opinion on competing parties or candidates and policy issues, but also for stimulating individuals to understand politics.","PeriodicalId":20275,"journal":{"name":"Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00323187.2021.1931373","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Political Science","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00323187.2021.1931373","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT Election polls have been widely used to probe and understand the public’s political attitudes and behaviour. However, they might simultaneously motivate people to seek information about the questions they do not know when they are asked in the polls. Given that past studies have ignored the role of polls in motivating individual information seeking, this study aims to examine the effect of polls on individual knowledge of the electoral system. Specifically, this study addresses whether individuals’ participation in the election poll would increase their understanding of the electoral system of the legislative election in Taiwan. Using survey data from Taiwan’s Election and Democratisation Study (TEDS) 2016 presidential and legislative elections, this study finds that people who are asked questions about the legislative election in the first survey are more likely to provide correct answers in the second survey compared to their counterparts. The findings imply that election polls are not only tools for understanding public opinion on competing parties or candidates and policy issues, but also for stimulating individuals to understand politics.
期刊介绍:
Political Science publishes high quality original scholarly works in the broad field of political science. Submission of articles with a regional focus on New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific is particularly encouraged, but content is not limited to this focus. Contributions are invited from across the political science discipline, including from the fields of international relations, comparative politics, political theory and public administration. Proposals for collections of articles on a common theme or debate to be published as special issues are welcome, as well as individual submissions.