THE ILLUSION OF INTIMACY TELEVISION AND THE ROLE OF CANDIDATE PERSONAL QUALITIES IN VOTER CHOICE

The role of television in the increased candidate orientednessof voters in U.S. presidential elections was examined usingdata from eight National Election Studies conducted by the SurveyResearch Center at The University of Michigan. The importanceof candidate personal qualities and traits was estimated usingvoter responses to open-ended questions about the candidates.Candidate personal qualities became more important for televisiondependent voters during the 1960s, and in each post-1964 electionwere less important for voters who relied on newspapers thanfor those who relied on television. The differences did notappear to be a function of the higher level of education ofnewspaper readers.