This study focuses on the specific political behavior of voting in the 1994 elections to assess what effect participation in conferencing has on it. It also tests several hypotheses concerning conferencing and its effects on the vote, most particularly whether or not information gleaned from a discussion group is used in determining an individual's vote. Participants will have high salaries and high levels of education. Participants with bachelor's degrees or not possessing a degree will be conservative, while those with advanced degrees will be liberal. Some hypotheses derived from these results are, H3.
Participants are more likely to be male.
Significant numbers of respondents will call themselves Republicans, independents, or say that parties are irrelevant to them. Usage also might be dependent upon the degree of extremity in political views. A fair number of self-proclaimed communists, socialists, and libertarians may be participants. As a result, H6. Participants should be fairly attentive to talk radio and C-SPAN and other local public access channels dealing with politics.