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Though people frequently use mobile technologies for news consumption, evidence from several fields shows that smaller screens and slower connection speeds pose major limitations for meaningful reading. In 'News and Democratic Citizens in the Mobile Era', Johanna Dunaway and Kathleen Searles demonstrate the effects of mobile devices on news attention, engagement, and recall, and identify a key cognitive mechanism underlying these effects: cognitive effort. They advance a theory that is both old and new: the costs of information-seeking curb participatory behaviors unless the benefits outweigh them. For news consumers in the mobile era, for example, mobile devices increase the time, economic, and cognitive costs associated with information-seeking. Only for a small few do the benefits of attending to the news on mobile devices outweigh the costs.

AbstractRecent research has uncovered a dynamic role for emotion in political decision-making. Anger in particular has increased in importance as scholars uncover its role in motivating participation and partisanship. One method for examining these effects is to use an induction to invoke an emotion, though such techniques are often limited to the laboratory. We discuss pertinent psychological research on induction, test several methods, and make practical recommendations for political science survey research. Using a unique research design which varies the way anger is invoked, we first find significant effects using a scenario induction. We replicate these findings with an adult sample and extend the results to political inductions. We are able to offer practical advice to scholars interested in replicating the effects of angry campaign ads or better understanding the effects of anger arousal on political behavior.

Due to limitations in both time and resources, presidents who wish to assist their copartisans' electoral endeavors must make strategic choices when offering their assistance. Much research has attempted to explain why presidents devote their limited resources during a midterm election, yet we know little about the factors that lead to a presidential visit to a particular congressional district. Our research addresses this gap in the literature by narrowing the focus to the congressional district level. We ask the following: Are the same factors that lead to a presidential visit at the state level operational at the district level? The results suggest they are not. Moreover, we find that while presidents do indeed behave rationally when they make appearances for their copartisans, visits are more likely to occur when there are multiple higher-level competitive races in a district, and presidents are more likely to go where they are already popular. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

In this article, we examine both the content and effects of opinion shows during the 2008 presidential election. First, a content analysis shows that opinion shows devote most of their attention to attacking the opposition candidate, rather than praising the like-minded candidate. Second, analyses of panel data show that exposure to opinion shows made viewers less (more) favorable toward the opposition (like-minded) candidate. Finally, we use overtime analyses to show that coverage of the opposition candidate affects attitudes toward both candidates, whereas coverage of the like-minded candidate has negligible effects on attitudes toward either candidate. Adapted from the source document.

In this article, we examine both the content and effects of opinion shows during the 2008 presidential election. First, a content analysis shows that opinion shows devote most of their attention to attacking the opposition candidate, rather than praising the like-minded candidate. Second, analyses of panel data show that exposure to opinion shows made viewers less (more) favorable toward the opposition (like-minded) candidate. Finally, we use overtime analyses to show that coverage of the opposition candidate affects attitudes toward both candidates, whereas coverage of the like-minded candidate has negligible effects on attitudes toward either candidate.

Due to limitations in both time and resources, presidents who wish to assist their copartisans' electoral endeavors must make strategic choices when offering their assistance. Much research has attempted to explain why presidents devote their limited resources during a midterm election, yet we know little about the factors that lead to a presidential visit to a particular congressional district. Our research addresses this gap in the literature by narrowing the focus to the congressional district level. We ask the following: Are the same factors that lead to a presidential visit at the state level operational at the district level? The results suggest they are not. Moreover, we find that while presidents do indeed behave rationally when they make appearances for their copartisans, visits are more likely to occur when there are multiple higher-level competitive races in a district, and presidents are more likely to go where they are already popular.

Recent research in the area of campaign advertising suggests that emotional appeals can influence political attitudes, electoral choices and decision‐making processes. Yet is there any evidence that candidates use emotional appeals strategically during campaigns? Is there a pattern to their use? For instance, are fear appeals used primarily late in the campaign by trailing candidates in order to get voters to rethink their choices? And are enthusiasm appeals used more commonly early on in order to shore up a candidate's base? We use affective intelligence theory—and supplement it with the idea of a voter backlash—to generate expectations about when candidates use certain emotional appeals (namely, anger, fear, enthusiasm, and pride) and which types of candidates are most likely to do so. We then test these ideas using campaign advertising data from several U.S. Senate races from 2004. Our research thus provides a link between research on campaign decision making—here the decision to "go emotional"—and research focusing on the effects of emotional appeals on voters.