The Presidential Debate As a Civics Lesson

On the assumption that "political learning" comprises more than formal instruction, this article investigates the attitudinal impact of exposure to the 1976 televised debates between American presidential candidates. Following Robinson's (1976) finding that exposure to "bad news" decreases confidence in the political system, the study examines the possibility that viewing the first Carter-Ford debate contributed significantly to changes in the respondents' sense of political efficacy, trust in government, level of cynicism, orientation to the campaign, and intent to vote. Data from an experimental study indicate only a limited impact from viewing the debate, which is attributed both to general problems of attitude change and the specific content of the debates. Kenneth D. Wald is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Memphis State University. Michael B. Lupfer is Professor and Acting Chairman in the Department of Psychology at Memphis State University. The authors want to thank the graduate students from their departments who served as proctors and supplied several television sets for the experiment. Public Opinion Quarterly ? 1978 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/78/0042-0342/$1.75 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.94 on Sat, 19 Nov 2016 04:36:18 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE AS A CIVICS LESSON 343 and McQuail, 1969; Klapper, 1960; Kraus and Davis, 1976; Mendelsohn and Crespi, 1970; Patterson and McClure, 1976) indicates to the contrary that televised communication has at best a limited impact on political attitudes. V. 0. Key (1963:396) reflected the academic consensus when he wrote that "the major influence of the media upon political attitudes is by and large a reinforcement of the status quo." An impressive body of social psychological research, ably summarized by Zimbardo et al. (1977), specifies the forces which limit the impact of persuasive communication on preexisting attitudes: limited access, inattention, selective perception, incomprehension, distortion, etc. These factors, which combine to "protect" the existing belief system from the challenge posed by persuasive communication, seemed to be at work in the 1960 televised debates between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Katz and Feldman's extensive literature review (1962) concluded that the debates functioned primarily to reinforce partisan attitudes and commitments, not to change them. Yet there is some possibility that studies of media influence on political attitudes have failed to detect much influence because of their focus on the kinds of attitudes most resistant to change. Most empirical studies have investigated the extent to which television can influence voting patterns or candidate images. Given the durability of partisan loyalty and the impact of selective perception, it is not surprising that televised communication has a limited influence on voting patterns or candidate images. But might television have considerable power on more general orientations to the political system? Michael Robinson (1976) reported recently that viewers of the CBS documentary, "The Selling of the Pentagon," were highly critical of the military after watching the program. Using national survey data, Robinson argued further that a high level of exposure to national news broadcasts was associated with reduced confidence in many aspects of the political system. He suggests that the broadcast media have a considerable impact on the national "mood" and his findings indicate that television is a potent agent of political learning. The Carter-Ford debates of 1976 occurred at a time when national confidence was severely depressed. One of the most striking trends in American politics since the mid-1960s had been a spectacular erosion of public confidence in government, manifested in a variety of indicators (Ladd, 1976-77). The presidential candidates were well aware of this trend and pitched their campaign messages to it. Gerald Ford, who began his presidency by asserting, "Our long national nightmare is over," sought to portray himself as the man who restored dignity and propriety to the White House. The challenger built his whole campaign around public disaffection, appealing for votes as the candiThis content downloaded from 157.55.39.94 on Sat, 19 Nov 2016 04:36:18 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms