Live audience responses to live televised election debates: time series analysis of issue salience and party salience on audience behavior

Televised political debates are the platforms for party leaders to outline their party's political programs and to attack those of their political opponents. At the same time journalists who moderate the debates are testing the party leaders’ ability to clearly outline and defend their programs. Television audiences of election debates evaluate these party leaders and political parties based on their television performances. Prior to the social media era, viewers’ evaluations were collected through phone surveys or web questionnaires. Nowadays viewers share their opinions in real-time on social media. Particularly Twitter is used in the Netherlands as the platform to share these opinions. In this study tweets produced by the audiences of five different televised debates that took place during the campaign for the Dutch 2012 parliamentary elections are analyzed in terms of tweeting about politicians and parties as well as political issues, as well as the content of the debates. This allowed us, using time series analysis, to test the relation between issue salience in debates and issue salience of the audience on Twitter. The issues of ‘Employment and income’ and ‘Europe’ were the most tweeted about, roughly aligning with the attention these issues received in televised debates. Findings further show there are consistent audience reactions to issues discussed in the debates: issues of ‘Housing’, ‘Care for the needy', and ‘Europe’ showing the strongest effects. However, candidates and parties are not explicitly associated by people active on Twitter when certain political issues are being debated on TV.     

INQUIRY

The following interview with Gary Orfield was conducted in May 2004. Gary Orfield is a professor of education and social policy at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He is the director of the Harvard Project on School Desegregation, and co‐director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project. Professor Orfield is the author of numerous books and publications, and has been consistently involved in government and court proceedings dealing with issues related to his research. He has been called to testify in civil rights suits by the US Department of Justice and many civil rights, legal services, and educational organizations. In 1997, Professor Orfield was awarded the American Political Science Association's Charles Merriam Award for his “contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research.”     

The quest for a universal social work: some issues and implications

What debates and issues are involved in moves to generalise about social work across the globe? This paper attempts to examine some of these major debates and, in so doing, to suggest some directions for a flexible approach. Crucial to these debates are several tensions around the issues of Westernisation, localisation and indigenisation in social work. It is also important to seek clarity around the complexities of international social work. The political implications involved in these movements are discussed and possible approaches to finding a flexible framework which allows for differences yet provides for accountability, responsiveness and connectivity are suggested.     

The Triple Agenda of Presidential Debates

The authors find little support for the view that televisedpresidential debates address the public's primary politicalconcerns. Though candidates speak directly to the public, andthe public is represented by journalists who question the candidates,the research suggests that never the "three shall meet." Basedon (I) content analysisof the Brst 1960 and 1976 presidentialdebates and (2) secondary analysis of survey data (Gallup andCPS), candidates, journalists, and public appear to have theirown separate issue agendas. Survey data in this paper were madeavailable by the Roper Center and the Inter-University Consortiumfor Political and Social Research, via the University of PennsylvaniaSocialScienceData Center. Data for 1976 were originally collected by theCenter for Political Studies of the Institute for Social Research,the University of Michigan, under a grant from the NationalScience Foundation. Neither the originalcollectors of the datanor the Consortium bear any responsibility for the analysesand interpretations presented here.     

Razorgirls and Cyberdykes: Tracing Cyberfeminism and Thoughts on Its Use in a Legal Context

The present state of cyberstudies poses new questions of embodiment, of (gendered) relationships with technology, and the effects of cyberspace on queer issues such as identity, gender and sexuality. It is notable that in a legal context, whereas there has been much attention paid to technical issues that cyberspace poses, there has been little attention paid to these new issues above, or possible theoretical frameworks within which to contextualize them, or potential feminist perspectives. Put simply, the debates of cyberstudies, and cyberfeminism in particular, have as yet been largely unreflected in mainstream academic and practical legal discourse. The aim of this essay, then, is to begin a process of integration. By looking at the work of some cyberfeminists, the author attempts to give a clearer picture of key debates and strands of thought in cyberfeminism, and to start thinking about how cyberfeminist insights might be used as part of a useful theoretical framework that could inform those academics interested in law, queer issues, and cyberspace.     

Poetic Labors and Challenging Political Science: An Epistolary Poem

ABSTRACT

The author, a political theorist, uses poetry to reflect on and spur structural change in admissions committees, hiring committees, funding decisions, curriculum development, and the institutionalized awards-making structure regarding African Politics in the American Political Science Association. This poem, delivered and performed at the American Political Science Association 2018 meeting in Boston, provides empirical and verifiable data about how scholarly awards are distributed in the discipline. The analysis of this process reflects on a long history of erasing, minimizing, and tokenizing the scholarship of African political scientists in the discipline of political science. Written as an epistolary poem, the author explains how #MeToo accounts for complex and interrelated forms of exclusion from the production of knowledge and uses the history of Black women in politics associations, writings by Patricia J. Williams, Pearl T. Robinson, Darlene Miller, and poetry by June Jordan (1936–2002) and Sweet Honey in the Rock (f. 1973).     

The Politicization of Knowledge Claims: The “Laffer Curve” in the U.S. Congress

Political debates over knowledge claims often become emotionally charged, with two sides not only disputing what is true but seeing those on the other side as deluded or worse. By looking at use of the term “Laffer curve” in the U.S. Congress from 1977 to 2010, we draw attention to two ways such debates over knowledge claims can evolve. The Laffer curve is a simple schematic representation of the relationship between tax rates and government revenue that was influential in U.S. tax policy in the late 1970s. Early on, Republicans and Democrats faced off over the Laffer curve as a cognitive symbol to be debated with argument, evidence, and reference to experts. Over time, Republicans continued to treat the Laffer curve as a cognitive symbol, but for Democrats it became a polluted expressive symbol that could be dismissed without debate. Democrats also articulated the Laffer curve as part of an ironic narrative about the failure of the Reagan administration, which ended the possibility of serious deliberation. We suggest that the dynamics seen here may also be present around other politicized knowledge claims, such as the claim that human activity is causing climate change.     

Political Science Quarterly,The Journal of Public and International Affairs

RJB Review of Journals and Books

Political Science Quarterly, The Journal of Public and International Affairs     

Candidates on Television: The 1972 Electoral Debates in West Germany

This article explores the nature and effects of the campaigndebates held in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1972. Thefindings indicate that the debates were bruising personal battlesthat emphasized issues and ethics. While they did not have anydirect effects on either candidate perceptions or issue salience,there is evidence that the debates may have had some importantindirect effects on the electorate's ultimate voting choices.     

What is DIstinctive about Mediation? Experience and Expertise in Media

If great material resources and specialist technical knowledge are no longer required for individuals to act as mass communicators, what resources are required? This paper reviews social theories of production that can help to shed light on the matter. It explores the nature of knowledge required in the production of content meant for a mass audience, and the manner of its validation. The paper progressively conceptualizes mass communication or mediation in terms of ‘media experience and expertise.’ It begins by framing the discussion of media production in terms of mediation and symbolic/media power, and teasing out knowledge and competence as problems that merit special attention. It then draws on two parallel areas of scholarship to think through the blurring of formerly neat boundaries between interpersonal and mass communication; producer and audience; and expert and layperson. First, the renewed interest in the lived experience of professional producers that is spurred by media production ethnographers. Second, ongoing debates in Science and Technology Studies (STS) around knowledge production and public participation. The paper concludes with a discussion of outstanding issues with respect to media theory and proposals for future work.     

Organizations and Learning: A Critical Appraisal

Discussions about organizations and learning continue to attract critical interest. Since the emergence in the 1970s of the notion of the “learning organization,” notions of systems’ learning, knowledge management and lifelong learning have progressively entered into the debates. Earlier debates, which drew on education and psychology fields as well as organization and management studies, frequently explored plural objectives for learning occurring within organizational and workplace arenas. They included emphasis on workers’ as well as managerial interests in various forms and objectives of learning. Latter debates on organizational learning appear predominantly shaped by a distinctive economic rationality and management interest. This article, from a sociological vantage point, reviews key thematic issues and critically explores some current questions in regard to organizations and learning. It proposes that a prevailing economic model in accordance with generalized policy objectives evident across the advanced economies for a neo‐liberalized “knowledge‐based economy” and “learning society” poses a particular set of contemporary issues and problems. The current juncture may, however, stimulate further innovation in models of learning organizations that widen agenda and prospects for learning.     

Evaluating Climate Migration

Climate change will negatively impact human communities and ecosystems, including driving increased food insecurity, increased exposure to disease, loss of livelihood and worsening poverty. Recent climate debates have focused attention on climate migrants, people who are displaced by the ecological stresses caused by climate change. To date, these debates have focused a great deal of attention on state security issues and have left the gender implications largely unexplored. In this article we examine the securitization of climate migration debates through gender lenses. We find that gender helps reveal and focus attention on the human security implications of climate migration and offers a useful discourse for climate policymaking.     

Suitability for Professional Practice: Assessing and Developing Moral Character in Social Work Education

This article considers the importance of an explicit focus upon the ‘character’ of social work applicants and students in debates regarding suitability for professional education and practice. Drawing upon the growing body of literature concerning gate-keeping decisions and the literature exploring the relevance of virtue ethics for social work, this article examines the benefits of an approach that foregrounds the assessment and development of moral character. The discussion is located within the context of the most recent reforms to social work education within England, whilst recognising the international relevance of these debates. It is argued that incorporating an approach informed by virtue ethics has the potential to bridge traditional fault-lines within selection debates that have focused upon the tensions between a widening access perspective and a focus upon academic ability. Crucially, this article examines the curriculum and pedagogic issues arising from a commitment to provide opportunities to develop moral character and virtue. The article argues that a dual focus upon selection and pedagogic issues, with an explicit focus upon character throughout, is critical to the development of wise, effective and virtuous social workers who are able to exercise sound judgment and wisdom across a range of practice contexts.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Max Weber and His Contemporaries . Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Juergen Osterhammel, editors. London: Allen & Unwin, 1987, 591 pages, $50.00, cloth
Max Weber and Political Commitment: Science, Politics, and Personality . Edward Bryan Portis. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987, 246 pages, $29.95, hardback.
Sociology: New Directions . Michael Haralambos, editor. Ormskirk, Lancashire: Causeway Press, Ltd., 1985, 675 pages, $22.25 hardbound, $11.75 softbound.
Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology . Michel Gallon, John Law and Arie Rip, editors. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1986, 238 pages, $39.50, hardback.
Constructing the Political Spectacle . Murray Edelman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988, 137 pages, $7.95, paper.
The Search for a Methodology of Social Science: Durkheim, Weber, and the Nineteenth-Century Problem of Cause, Probability and Action . Stephen P. Turner. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1986, 251 pages, hardback.     

Family leave legislation in the American states: Toward a model of state policy adoption

The issue of mandated family leave has drawn substantial attention in recent years. This article develops and tests empirically a model of adoption of family leave policies in the American states during the late 1980s. State family leave policies are seen as a function of three sets of variables: (a) institutional-elite variables such as partisan control of state government and the proportion of women in the state legislatures; (b) constituency disposition variables such as mass partisanship, mass ideology, and the likelihood of general support for “women's” issues; and (c) contextual-demand variables such as birth rates and women's participation in the workforce. The model provides impressive fit to the data, accurately predicting the family leave policies of 92% of the state cases. The results suggest the importance of partisan control of state government, proportion of women in the state legislature, urbanization, and feminism as a state policy as factors that affect the probability that states will adopt mandated family leave policies. His research interests include American politics, public policy, and domestic political economy. He is editor of theAmerican Politics Quarterly, and is former President of the State Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include family policy and women's labor force participation. She received her Ph.D. in Family Science from the University of Georgia.     

Popular Hazards and Policy Rhetoric

Popular hazards are common activities that involve some risks of harm, such as driving a car, possessing or shooting a gun, drinking alcohol, or smoking marijuana. In each of these cases, many millions of Americans engage in the activity, but only a small fraction of them harm themselves or other people. Because the activity is so common, the number harmed may be substantial, although more serious harms tend to be much more infrequent than less serious harms. Social policy debates almost always focus on some particular popular hazard, yet we can see rhetorical similarities—parallel arguments—in how advocates frame what are understood to be very different social issues. Thus, discourse about legalizing recreational marijuana use tends to invoke claims that are quite similar to those opposing further gun control. The category of popular hazards allows us to recognize parallels in policy debates about seemingly unrelated social issues. Focusing on the underlying policy issue—balancing popularity and hazardousness—encourages considering alternative ways to construct social policies.     

ERRATUM

Table 2 in Kent Tedin, "Change and Stability in PresidentialPopularity at the Individual Level" (POQ, Winter 1986) containsseveral errors in the count of the response permutations. ProfessorTedin will provide a corrected table upon request to him atthe Department of Political Science, University of Houston,4800 Calhoun Road, Houston, TX 77004.     

Unequal at the starting line: Creating participatory inequalities across generations and among groups

We investigate how inequalities in political participation are shaped across generations by considering the influence of family background-in particular, parents' education and political involvement-on political participation. We pursue this issue, first, for individuals, investigating the effects of parental characteristics on the participatory profile of their offspring. Then, we use what we have learned to understand how group differences in political participation-between women and men and among Latinos, African Americans, and Anglo Whites-are rooted in the legacy of class and political background and in experiences throughout the life cycle. They are co-authors of The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and Political Participation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001) which was the co-writer of the Victoria Schuck Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book on gender and politics of its year.     

Breaking Out of the Ivory Tower: (Re)Thinking Inclusion of Women and Scholars of Color in the Academy

ABSTRACT

In this #MeToo moment, many women of color have called out those in power, namely men, who engage in sexual harassment and toxic masculinity. Furthermore, scholars, whose personal identities and research interests lie at the margins of gender, race, class, and sexuality, have drawn increasing attention to issues of gendered and racialized biases and harassment in the Academy. During our pre-conference session at the 2018 meeting of the American Political Science Association, we discussed substantive methods for reckoning with these conditions. We worked through the theoretical frameworks of Black Feminist and queer scholarship to orient ourselves toward actions that center the most marginalized. We identified methods for generating transformative solutions to campus and departmental problems facing students, faculty, and staff with intersectional identities. In all, the workshop proved both effective and generative for all in attendance, providing those present with concrete tools to build more equitable departments and classrooms.     

The "Positivity Bias" inEvaluations of Public Figures:Evidence Against Instrument Artifacts

The "positivity bias" is a term used to describe the consistentfavorable evaluation of public figures found in surveys overthe past 40 years. This paper explored several possible artifactualexplanations for this bias,focusing on the survey instrumentitself. Two experiments varied the labeling and ordering ofscale endpoints, the affective value of the initial contextevaluated, and the presence or absence of a prestigious jobtitle associated with the nameof the public figure. None ofthe variations produced significantly different levels of positivitythan the standard control condition used in each experiment.RichardR. Lau is a graduate student in social psychology at the Universityof California, Los Angeles. David O. Sears is Professor of Psychologyand Political Science at UCLA. Richard Centers is Professorof Psychology at UCLA. This research was supported in part byGrant #SOC73-09153 A03 from the National Science Foundationto David O. Sears. The authors wish to expess their thanks toMark Williams, who did most of the coding and checking involvedin the survey.