Suchergebnisse

Media coverage of State of the Union proposals increases public knowledge on presidential policy initiatives, especially among individuals who follow news coverage. These estimates are based on within‐survey/within‐subjects comparisons of answers to factual questions for respondents who are simultaneously unexposed and exposed to media coverage on the same issue. In this powerful but underused design, individuals serve as counterfactuals for themselves, holding constant all relevant observed and unobserved characteristics. The findings are based on statistical analyses of data from four national surveys conducted since the late 1990s covering a range of topics from health care to Social Security reform. Watching or listening to the address directly does not appreciably affect knowledge once control variables are added for whether individuals follow news coverage of the speech, the amount of news coverage, and the interaction of these two factors.

Theorists argue that deliberation promotes enlightenment and consensus, but scholars do not know how deliberation affects policy opinions. Using the deliberative democracy and public opinion literatures as a guide, I develop a theory of opinion updating where citizens who deliberate revise their prior beliefs, particularly when they encounter consensual messages. A key aspect of this model is that opinion strength moderates the deliberative opinion change process. In two separate propensity score analyses using panel survey data from a deliberative forum and cross-sectional surveys, I show how deliberation and discussion both affect opinions toward Social Security reform. However, deliberation differs from ordinary discussion in that participants soften strongly held views, encounter different perspectives, and learn readily. Thus, deliberation increases knowledge and alters opinions, but it does so selectively based on the quality and diversity of the messages as well as the willingness of participants to keep an open mind.