Polls and Elections: The Conditional Effects of Competing Messages during Presidential Nominating Conventions

Cera, Joseph, Weinschenk, Aaron C., Presidential Studies Quarterly

Introduction

To what degree can positive impressions made by presidential candidates be successfully counteracted by subsequent negative messaging? Can the impact of negative messaging be nullified by subsequent positive impressions? These are questions that matter to candidates and parties during the presidential nominating conventions, and they are questions that scholars have yet to examine fully. Conventions are unique events where the convening party has a few days of breathing room to campaign with the full attention of the electorate while the opposition takes a traditional step back. In effect, the parties take turns ceding a massive information advantage to one another. As a result, there is a strong incentive for the party that convenes first to anticipate and preempt the opposing party's messaging as much as possible, and it is in the best interests of the party that convenes second to try and counteract any messaging presented by the first party. While scholars have devoted attention to modeling the impact of single conventions, how the conventions jointly impact opinion at the individual level has not been studied. We think that considered together, the conventions within a given election cycle present an ideal opportunity to study how individuals deal with sequential competing messages and a compelling way to examine the extent to which information screening and biased processing are involved in the formation of individual opinion about candidates for the American presidency.

With a few exceptions, most empirical investigation of campaign effects during conventions has been concerned with aggregate-level outcomes. Unfortunately, conclusions about the different ways that individuals are impacted by conventions cannot reliably be drawn from aggregate-level data. Recently, researchers have recognized that measuring variation in both individual characteristics and exposure to information during conventions is necessary before a complete picture of how conventions shape public opinion can be gained (Cera and Weinschenk 2012; Hillygus and Jackman 2003). Panel data collected around single conventions has made it possible to isolate a persuasive effect triggered by convention speech consumption from a general partisan bias-activating effect associated with exposure to the rest of the intensely political convention information atmosphere. In this article, we attempt to further advance individual-level investigation of convention effects by isolating and considering individual exposure to information from both conventions within a given election cycle.

The Informational Role of Conventions

The study of campaign effects came to occupy an important place in the political behavior literature as scholars began to focus on their informational role. However, because of their complexity and length, a comprehensive model of campaign effects has eluded us. Focusing on the specific events and activities that occur during election cycles, such as debates and conventions, has made the study of campaigns more tractable (Hillygus and Jackman 2003; Holbrook 1996; Shaw 1999). Sharer succinctly described the usefulness of conventions to the study of campaign effects: "The convention is unique in the degree to which it is spatially and temporally bounded, and hence intellectually manageable. The context for its actions, then, can be examined in an unusually comprehensive fashion" (1988, 1). During a convention, the convening party captures nearly all conventional media coverage and monopolizes it for several days. The result is a one-sided onslaught of campaign information; "the only time during the campaign when parties are able to exercise clear control over the flow of information" (Holbrook 1996, 80). This aspect of conventions is particularly important because the audience during conventions is generally vast and diverse, consisting of partisans of both stripes and independents alike. In this way, conventions have the potential to both energize partisan supporters and influence independents' and opposition partisans' perceptions of the candidates. Trent and Friedenberg elaborate:

   Since 1952 the presence of television has restructured convention
   programming so that the party's 'important' events occur during
   'prime time.' To make certain that this happens, the convention
   chair often ignores the activities of the delegates on the
   convention floor and rushes through any official party business to
   make certain that those events planned to give the party the most
   favorable image (for example, ecumenical prayers, civic greetings,
   performances by show business personalities, keynote and acceptance
   speeches, and controlled and planned 'spontaneous' demonstrations
   for candidates) will be seen during the hours in which most people
   watch television (2000, 45 emphasis added).

Panagopoulos (2007b) frames this information bonanza as beneficial to the electorate, noting that "conventions continue to play an important role in the campaign process partly because they arm citizens with more political information that can be used to evaluate candidates and make wise vote choices" (92). The timing of conventions (early in the general election cycle, when information about candidates is relatively scarce) allows this flow of political information to exercise the largest impact (Holbrook 1996).

How Conventions Impact Individual Opinion

To date, most studies aimed at assessing the effects of presidential conventions on opinion have focused on aggregate shifts in candidate support (commonly referred to as convention "bumps" or "bounces") (Campbell, Cherry, and Wink 1992; Gelman and King 1993; Holbrook 1996; Panagopoulos 2007a; Shaw 1999; Stimson 2004). Much of this work is outcome-oriented, focused on establishing that convention effects matter to election outcomes. However, aggregate outcomes are always driven by individual-level change, and there has been a dearth of research aimed at understanding how convention information impacts individual members of the electorate. A notable exception is the work of Hillygus and Jackman (2003), whose key innovation was the use of panel data collected around the 2000 conventions. They focused on individual characteristics; on who was likely to change after the conventions. However, they did not address the fact that information exposure can vary from person to person. Building on their work, Cera and Weinschenk (2012) …

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Publication information: Article title: Polls and Elections: The Conditional Effects of Competing Messages during Presidential Nominating Conventions. Contributors: Cera, Joseph - Author, Weinschenk, Aaron C. - Author. Journal title: Presidential Studies Quarterly. Volume: 42. Issue: 1 Publication date: March 2012. Page number: 161+. © 1999 Center for the Study of the Presidency. COPYRIGHT 2012 Gale Group.

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