Pub Date : 2019-06-13DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.21
J. Uscinski
Conspiracy theories have become a more prominent part of political discourse in recent years. But, social scientists are only beginning to learn about their role in political persuasion. This chapter considers some important questions regarding them: Can conspiracy theories, or a worldview shaped by conspiracy thinking, change attitudes, alter behavior, or generate collective action? Who uses conspiracy theories to persuade and for what purposes? Are such attempts successful? It first reviews what social scientists have learned about conspiracy theories and the people who believe them and then advocates for a research agenda which better situates conspiracy theories within the literature addressing political persuasion.
{"title":"Conspiracy Theories","authors":"J. Uscinski","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.21","url":null,"abstract":"Conspiracy theories have become a more prominent part of political discourse in recent years. But, social scientists are only beginning to learn about their role in political persuasion. This chapter considers some important questions regarding them: Can conspiracy theories, or a worldview shaped by conspiracy thinking, change attitudes, alter behavior, or generate collective action? Who uses conspiracy theories to persuade and for what purposes? Are such attempts successful? It first reviews what social scientists have learned about conspiracy theories and the people who believe them and then advocates for a research agenda which better situates conspiracy theories within the literature addressing political persuasion.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123852072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-09DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.40
Deana A. Rohlinger
Non-party groups increasingly go after the electorate in their efforts to force politicians to take up their issues. Internet Communication Technologies (ICTs), which allow non-party groups to communicate with voters directly, aid in their efforts. How non-party groups try to tip the political scales in their favor is the topic of this chapter. This chapter outlines three ways that non-party groups, or groups that are not affiliated with, based on, or representing a political party, influence politicians and political parties in the digital age: framing issues; mobilizing consensus among a broad swatch of the populace; and mobilizing some subset of the electorate to action. The chapter begins by distinguishing three types of non-party groups—grassroots organizations, social movement organizations, and astroturf organizations—which vary in resources and capacity. It argues that these differences affect not only how groups use mass media, and ICTs specifically, to affect political change, but also how they frame issues and mobilize the electorate to action. The chapter concludes with a call for additional research. Social scientists need to pay close attention to astroturf groups, which seem to coopt legitimate political change projects for their own purposes.
{"title":"Persuasion and Non-Party Groups in the Digital Age","authors":"Deana A. Rohlinger","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.40","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.40","url":null,"abstract":"Non-party groups increasingly go after the electorate in their efforts to force politicians to take up their issues. Internet Communication Technologies (ICTs), which allow non-party groups to communicate with voters directly, aid in their efforts. How non-party groups try to tip the political scales in their favor is the topic of this chapter. This chapter outlines three ways that non-party groups, or groups that are not affiliated with, based on, or representing a political party, influence politicians and political parties in the digital age: framing issues; mobilizing consensus among a broad swatch of the populace; and mobilizing some subset of the electorate to action. The chapter begins by distinguishing three types of non-party groups—grassroots organizations, social movement organizations, and astroturf organizations—which vary in resources and capacity. It argues that these differences affect not only how groups use mass media, and ICTs specifically, to affect political change, but also how they frame issues and mobilize the electorate to action. The chapter concludes with a call for additional research. Social scientists need to pay close attention to astroturf groups, which seem to coopt legitimate political change projects for their own purposes.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125939988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-09DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.49
S. Bowler, Stephen P. Nicholson
A long-standing criticism of voters in direct democracy elections is that they lack informed and stable opinions on policy issues and are therefore highly susceptible to campaigns. Voters are therefore not so much persuaded by substantive arguments to vote in a way that is consistent with fixed policy views but instead are pushed and pulled to vote for and against ballot measures since the foundations of their preferences rest on inconsistent and incomplete ideologies. Voters in ballot proposition contests are, in other words, persuaded all too easily to change their views. This chapter reviews that argument and presents evidence for a counter-argument that voters—at least in the US setting—are less open to persuasion than the literature often suggests.
{"title":"Persuasion and Ballot Propositions","authors":"S. Bowler, Stephen P. Nicholson","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.49","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.49","url":null,"abstract":"A long-standing criticism of voters in direct democracy elections is that they lack informed and stable opinions on policy issues and are therefore highly susceptible to campaigns. Voters are therefore not so much persuaded by substantive arguments to vote in a way that is consistent with fixed policy views but instead are pushed and pulled to vote for and against ballot measures since the foundations of their preferences rest on inconsistent and incomplete ideologies. Voters in ballot proposition contests are, in other words, persuaded all too easily to change their views. This chapter reviews that argument and presents evidence for a counter-argument that voters—at least in the US setting—are less open to persuasion than the literature often suggests.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"103 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131052365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-09DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.29
E. Hartman, Inés Levin
This chapter focuses on methods for analyzing data from Internet surveys with complex survey designs in order to draw inferences that can be generalized to a target population of interest. We first review the central design issues and approaches for dealing with representativeness challenges that researchers commonly face when using online polling for persuasion research. Then, using data from a survey experiment on support for immigration reform, we demonstrate the importance of the careful choice of auxiliary information used when constructing weights for ensuring the generalizability of findings from non-representative Internet surveys.
{"title":"Accounting for Complex Survey Designs","authors":"E. Hartman, Inés Levin","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.29","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses on methods for analyzing data from Internet surveys with complex survey designs in order to draw inferences that can be generalized to a target population of interest. We first review the central design issues and approaches for dealing with representativeness challenges that researchers commonly face when using online polling for persuasion research. Then, using data from a survey experiment on support for immigration reform, we demonstrate the importance of the careful choice of auxiliary information used when constructing weights for ensuring the generalizability of findings from non-representative Internet surveys.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129087198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-09DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.10
David A. Siegel
Citizens’ electoral choices are subject to persuasion from numerous sources, including their social networks, media outlets, candidates’ campaigns, and interest groups. Extensive literatures address the isolated effects of each source, with mechanisms as diverse as information, influence, and sanctioning driving these effects. Understanding these isolated effects is sufficient to the extent that each effect is independent of all others. However, this is not typically the case when social networks are involved, due to the feedback inherent in the propagation of persuasion across networks. This feedback implies that network structure conditions the effects of other sources of persuasion. Consequently, failure to consider social network structure in studies of political persuasion risks biased accounts of the effects of persuasion. This essay elaborates on this point and discusses its consequences for the study and practice of electoral persuasion.
{"title":"Networks and Media Influence","authors":"David A. Siegel","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.10","url":null,"abstract":"Citizens’ electoral choices are subject to persuasion from numerous sources, including their social networks, media outlets, candidates’ campaigns, and interest groups. Extensive literatures address the isolated effects of each source, with mechanisms as diverse as information, influence, and sanctioning driving these effects. Understanding these isolated effects is sufficient to the extent that each effect is independent of all others. However, this is not typically the case when social networks are involved, due to the feedback inherent in the propagation of persuasion across networks. This feedback implies that network structure conditions the effects of other sources of persuasion. Consequently, failure to consider social network structure in studies of political persuasion risks biased accounts of the effects of persuasion. This essay elaborates on this point and discusses its consequences for the study and practice of electoral persuasion.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128926870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-09DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.18
Geoffrey Baym, R. Holbert
Infotainment is a generally pejorative term used to indicate a broad range of normative concerns surrounding the generation, dissemination, and consumption of political information packaged in entertaining formats. This chapter argues that the term infotainment has outlasted its usefulness as a theoretical concept and details a notion of hybrid political-entertainment media as a more useful approach to conceptualize a core mode of political campaigning, persuasion, and influence within a rapidly transforming media environment. The chapter then offers a typology detailing three primary modes of hybrid media—TV chat, political satire, and partisan punditry—and explores extant scholarship on persuasive effects, public awareness influence, and macro-social cultural shifts associated with various popular political-entertainment forms.
{"title":"Beyond Infotainment","authors":"Geoffrey Baym, R. Holbert","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.18","url":null,"abstract":"Infotainment is a generally pejorative term used to indicate a broad range of normative concerns surrounding the generation, dissemination, and consumption of political information packaged in entertaining formats. This chapter argues that the term infotainment has outlasted its usefulness as a theoretical concept and details a notion of hybrid political-entertainment media as a more useful approach to conceptualize a core mode of political campaigning, persuasion, and influence within a rapidly transforming media environment. The chapter then offers a typology detailing three primary modes of hybrid media—TV chat, political satire, and partisan punditry—and explores extant scholarship on persuasive effects, public awareness influence, and macro-social cultural shifts associated with various popular political-entertainment forms.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124370477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-09DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.14
Patrícia G. C. Rossini, Jennifer Stromer-Galley
Political conversation is at the heart of democratic societies, and it is an important precursor of political engagement. As society has become intertwined with the communication infrastructure of the Internet, we need to understand its uses and the implications of those uses for democracy. This chapter provides an overview of the core topics of scholarly concern around online citizen deliberation, focusing on three key areas of research: the standards of quality of communication and the normative stance on citizen deliberation online; the impact and importance of digital platforms in structuring political talk; and the differences between formal and informal political talk spaces. After providing a critical review of these three major areas of research, we outline directions for future research on online citizen deliberation.
{"title":"Citizen Deliberation Online","authors":"Patrícia G. C. Rossini, Jennifer Stromer-Galley","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.14","url":null,"abstract":"Political conversation is at the heart of democratic societies, and it is an important precursor of political engagement. As society has become intertwined with the communication infrastructure of the Internet, we need to understand its uses and the implications of those uses for democracy. This chapter provides an overview of the core topics of scholarly concern around online citizen deliberation, focusing on three key areas of research: the standards of quality of communication and the normative stance on citizen deliberation online; the impact and importance of digital platforms in structuring political talk; and the differences between formal and informal political talk spaces. After providing a critical review of these three major areas of research, we outline directions for future research on online citizen deliberation.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129998406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-09DOI: 10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190860806.013.28
Seth K. Goldman, Stephen Warren
To answer many of the most pressing questions in the social sciences, researchers need reliable and valid measures of media exposure that can be implemented in surveys. Despite considerable effort, however, substantial disagreement remains about how best to measure this key concept. This chapter critically reviews the debate surrounding traditional frequency measures of exposure to “news” and contemporary list-based measures of political media exposure. It also evaluates the related debate over how best to capture the effects of media exposure with different observational research designs. Overall, the chapter finds that although substantial progress has been made in measurement and research design, both issues require more attention if scholars are to understand the many and varied effects of media exposure.
{"title":"Debating How to Measure Media Exposure in Surveys","authors":"Seth K. Goldman, Stephen Warren","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190860806.013.28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190860806.013.28","url":null,"abstract":"To answer many of the most pressing questions in the social sciences, researchers need reliable and valid measures of media exposure that can be implemented in surveys. Despite considerable effort, however, substantial disagreement remains about how best to measure this key concept. This chapter critically reviews the debate surrounding traditional frequency measures of exposure to “news” and contemporary list-based measures of political media exposure. It also evaluates the related debate over how best to capture the effects of media exposure with different observational research designs. Overall, the chapter finds that although substantial progress has been made in measurement and research design, both issues require more attention if scholars are to understand the many and varied effects of media exposure.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128100774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-09DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.1
R. Lau
Persuasion is an active, intentional attempt to change nonverifiable evaluations, feeling, values, norms, and related behaviors. Historically, there have been two major programs of attitude change research in social psychology, one a learning theory approach associated with Carl Hovland, the second a cognitive consistency approach associated with Gestalt psychology and the research of Fritz Heider and the many students of Kurt Lewin. More recently, dual process theories of attitude change point to two different paths by which persuasion can occur, one a central route based on a relatively deep, systematic, conscious processing of the arguments in a persuasive message; the second a peripheral route based on more shallow, heuristic, and sometimes almost automatic processing of a persuasive message. Attitudes are frequently an important—but rarely the only—determinant of behavior; and behavior, sometimes, can be an important determinant of attitudes.
{"title":"Classic Models of Persuasion","authors":"R. Lau","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.1","url":null,"abstract":"Persuasion is an active, intentional attempt to change nonverifiable evaluations, feeling, values, norms, and related behaviors. Historically, there have been two major programs of attitude change research in social psychology, one a learning theory approach associated with Carl Hovland, the second a cognitive consistency approach associated with Gestalt psychology and the research of Fritz Heider and the many students of Kurt Lewin. More recently, dual process theories of attitude change point to two different paths by which persuasion can occur, one a central route based on a relatively deep, systematic, conscious processing of the arguments in a persuasive message; the second a peripheral route based on more shallow, heuristic, and sometimes almost automatic processing of a persuasive message. Attitudes are frequently an important—but rarely the only—determinant of behavior; and behavior, sometimes, can be an important determinant of attitudes.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"104 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125030391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-09DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.32
Cheryl Boudreau
Political endorsements (recommendations about which candidate or policy to support) are ubiquitous in political contexts. They may come from political parties, interest groups, politicians, or even celebrities. Can uninformed citizens identify endorsers who share their interests and use their recommendations as substitutes for detailed political information? This chapter surveys the literature on the persuasion effects of political endorsements. It first provides an overview of theoretical models that examine how political endorsements affect citizens’ choices. Then, it describes a seminal observational study of how endorsements affect political persuasion. It next discusses experimental research that assesses the effects of endorsements. It emphasizes that experiments are particularly useful for identifying when political endorsements will persuade citizens because they allow scholars to manipulate the conditions that theoretical models identify in a carefully controlled environment. It concludes by discussing open questions about the effects of political endorsements and describing how ongoing research addresses them.
{"title":"The Persuasion Effects of Political Endorsements","authors":"Cheryl Boudreau","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.32","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190860806.013.32","url":null,"abstract":"Political endorsements (recommendations about which candidate or policy to support) are ubiquitous in political contexts. They may come from political parties, interest groups, politicians, or even celebrities. Can uninformed citizens identify endorsers who share their interests and use their recommendations as substitutes for detailed political information? This chapter surveys the literature on the persuasion effects of political endorsements. It first provides an overview of theoretical models that examine how political endorsements affect citizens’ choices. Then, it describes a seminal observational study of how endorsements affect political persuasion. It next discusses experimental research that assesses the effects of endorsements. It emphasizes that experiments are particularly useful for identifying when political endorsements will persuade citizens because they allow scholars to manipulate the conditions that theoretical models identify in a carefully controlled environment. It concludes by discussing open questions about the effects of political endorsements and describing how ongoing research addresses them.","PeriodicalId":184516,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion","volume":"7 7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125812759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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