Suchergebnisse

Research on public opinion has found that respondents to survey questions lack true attitudes towards different economic and moral issues. Given the latter, these respondents do not use their stance towards these issues to decide for which party or candidate to vote for. One of the main reasons for these dismal findings lies on the existence of measurement error. The paper presents a technique that corrects for measurement error and tests the importance of issues stances in the vote choice of the Mexican electorate during the 2006 Presidential Election. The paper also analyzes the significance of a "perceived issue space" and demonstrates that this concept is important to understand which particular issue stances matter and which ones do not in a voting decision. Adapted from the source document.

The study is the result of a research project developed at the University of Granada. Research on televised debates has been traditionally focused primarily on measuring the impact of the debates right after them. However, little attention has been paid to the micro-processes that occur during the debates, which may identify other important variables beyond the influence of debates on the vote. Analysing the electoral televised debate between Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy (March 3, 2008) celebrated few days before the general elections, we could identify the immediate reactions of the audience on a real time basis regarding the performance of the two candidates, determining the discursive strategies that best reach the public. This research combines various research strategies. We applied a system of real-time response (Continuous Response Measurement), content analysis and survey analysis, in order to control a large number of complex dimensions involved in the interaction under study as, for example, the ideological bias or expectations managed on results of the debate. The findings will let us know what were the aspects that determined the immediate perceptions of citizens in the event, what was the role played by the media, or the most effective discursive strategies in order to seduce viewers during the televised debate. Adapted from the source document.