Learning About the Candidates: The 1976 Presidential Debates

In this study of the 1976 televised Carter-Ford debates, the authors find that the debates produced a heightened political awareness in viewers in the critical days just prior to the election. The information obtained from the debates focused largely on candidate competence, performance and personality attributes rather than on issues, but some increase in information on issues and policies can be linked to the debates. The major impact of the debates may have been to reinforce partisan predispositions. Arthur H. Miller is a Senior Study Director at the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, and Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan. Michael MacKuen is an Assistant Professor of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Public Opinion Quarterly ?) 1979 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/79/0043-326/$1.75 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.35 on Fri, 02 Sep 2016 05:57:30 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1976 PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES 327 mation holding and enhance the saliency of various issues and political objects. Because the 1976 televised presidential debates were widely viewed they provide a unique opportunity for studying the possible effects of the media on the level and type of information that voters had about the candidates. Contemporary voting behavior research has demonstrated that voter perceptions of candidate attributes and voter evaluations of the candidates have become increasingly important in determining the outcome of presidential elections, whereas the impact of partisan predispositions has declined (Kirkpatrick et al., 1975). Although the growing literature on candidate images has begun to explore the general dimensions underlying public perceptions of candidates (Nimmo and Savage, 1976; Miller and Miller, 1976), it has given only limited consideration to the relationship between media outputs and those perceptions. This study will investigate the public's cognitions and evaluations of the 1976 presidential candidates, how these assessments were influenced by the three televised debates, and how the debates affected cognitions of candidate attributes and feelings toward each candidate. Following the promising trends in current media research, the emphasis will be on the relationship between media usage and information holding. In general, we will want to know if watching the presidential debates increased the information that citizens had about the candidates. Did watching the debates affect the perception of differences or similarities between the candidates? What beliefs about the candidates endured as a result of having watched the debates? Did information obtained from the debates provide a contribution to the citizen's understanding of the candidates that was independent of other media sources such as newspapers and TV news? Likewise, did such information have any impact on evaluations of the candidates? Although the relationship between media outputs and the vote is not discussed, it is demonstrated that the debates, and the media more generally, did influence public cognitions and, to a lesser extent, evaluations of the candidates and thereby affected the 1976 presidential election. The data employed in the analysis come from the Center for Political Studies 1976 national presidential election survey of 2,875 adult citizens.2 The survey questionnaire included a series of structured and 2 The CPS 1976 national presidential survey was made possible by grant #SOC 7613562 from the National Science Foundation. Starting in mid-September respondents were interviewed prior to the election and again immediately after the election. The preelection sample was randomly divided into halves (September 15 to October 15, mid-October to election day); one half was interviewed in the first interview period, the This content downloaded from 157.55.39.35 on Fri, 02 Sep 2016 05:57:30 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 328 ARTHUR H. MILLER AND MICHAEL MacKUEN open-ended questions designed to measure reactions to the presidential debates, items measuring both newspaper and TV usage habits, and the usual extensive complement of political attitude questions.