While theoretical work on strategic voting emphasizes the importance of elite messages in persuading minor party supporters to abandon their first preference, few empirical studies have examined this relationship. I argue that while poll results certainly increase the likelihood of changing one's vote, explicit information signals can increase this probability even more. Furthermore, these effects will be moderated by the presence of a counter message and the sponsor of the explicit information signal. These hypotheses are tested with data generated from two experiments. Adapted from the source document.
AbstractWe assess individuals' responses to news about threat, compared to news about positive indicators of well-being, using data from nine experiments conducted across eight countries. The general proposition is that exposure to news about threat increases tendencies to "tune in" to information, compared to those presented with news about better times. The evidence strongly supports this expectation: without exception, the average respondent recalls and seeks more information about terrorist threat than good times. Further, this pattern of results generalizes to other threats. The study thematically and geographically extends research on negative information and political learning. It also has broader implications: absorbing newsworthy information is foundational to the types of attitudes citizens express and the extent to which, and how, they engage in the world around them.