Policy & Internet, Vol. 6, No.

1, 2014

Effects of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) on

Political Knowledge About Party Positions
Martin Schultze

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have experienced a rising demand in recent years, being an
efficient and reliable way for voters to gain political information prior to elections. This article uses
an online survey to examine the impact of the German VAA (the “Wahl-O-Mat”) on the political
knowledge of its users concerning party positions during the 2009 German Federal Election. The
article first assesses empirically the extent to which Wahl-O-Mat users are able to correctly identify
party positions on relevant issues, and the extent to which they are misinformed. Multivariate
analyses with a path model for categorical data are then undertaken to establish whether Wahl-O-
Mat usage enhances political knowledge about party positions. It is shown that Wahl-O-Mat use
has a positive effect on political knowledge, indicating that electoral effects can be partially explained
by this change in the information level of users. However, it is also shown that political knowledge
is very heterogeneous, and the level of confusion about party positions is high.
KEY WORDS: Voting Advice Applications, VAAs, Wahl-O-Mat, political knowledge, party positions,
misinformation, 2009 German Federal Election, political online communication

Introduction

Political knowledge is an important resource for participation in the political

sphere. Only citizens who have at least a basic understanding of politics are able
to contribute to the democratic process in a meaningful way (Westle, 2006, p.
236). However, empirical analyses of political knowledge in an international
perspective reveal a less than euphoric picture of the factual knowledge of the
citizens in Western European democracies (Dalton, 2008, pp. 13–6; Luskin, 2002).
The expansion of the Internet and other new information and communication
technologies raises positive expectations concerning the level of information and
participation of the electorate. The promise that (mainly) the Internet is able to
revitalize political participation and especially to mobilize young people to deal
with politics has also found some empirical support (Gibson, Wainer, &
Ward, 2005; Martin, 2012; Owen, 2006).
In this context, a special group of Internet applications for political education
has been established in recent years throughout Europe. These tools, referred to

46
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Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX42 DQ.
Schultze: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions 47

as Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), have the explicit goal to inform citizens
about the relevant policy positions of political parties and to motivate them to
political participation prior to elections. These applications share a basic
functionality: VAAs compare the voters’ policy positions with those of parties or
candidates running for election (Cedroni & Garzia, 2010; Garzia &
Marschall, 2012). After voters have marked their positions on a list of policy
statements, VAAs compare their answer patterns with the patterns of the parties/
candidates, indicating which party or candidate has the highest degree of
proximity to the users’ positions.
Because of their focus on political topics such tools clearly relate to the issue-
orientation of citizens: The users of these tools are not only made aware of the
relevant topics of the election campaign, but they also catch up on the parties’
positions in a comparative perspective, which should lead to an increase in the
political knowledge of VAA users in terms of party positions. The German VAA,
the Wahl-O-Mat, is produced by the Federal Agency for Civic Education
(“Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung”), a governmental agency connected to
the Ministry of the Interior. A first Wahl-O-Mat version was provided for the
2002 Federal Election, followed by versions for the Federal Elections in 2005, 2009,
and 2013, and the European Elections in 2004, 2009, and 2014. Already in its first
run in 2002, the tool was used 3.6 million times. Before the Federal Election in
2009, the reference point of this study, the tool provided 6.7 million advices
(Marschall, 2011, p. 137), presumably reaching a remarkable share of the German
electorate.
This article analyzes empirically whether the German VAA has the expected
effect on political knowledge about party positions, based on survey data for the
2009 German Federal Election. The following section covers the theoretical
framework and the empirical results for political knowledge in Germany, as well
as results on the impact of VAAs on political behavior in the context of political
online communication. After a brief description of the data, methods and
operationalization of political knowledge, descriptive analyses show the level of
knowledge and misinformation about party positions. Furthermore, multivariate
methods reveal whether the usage of the Wahl-O-Mat has a positive effect on the
political knowledge. In the final section, the findings are summarized and
discussed within the context of “media effects” in political online communication
(Lin, 2009) and for political education.

Theoretical Framework: Political Knowledge, Political Online Communication,

and Voting Advice Applications

There are only a few findings based on survey research for the level of
political knowledge, its determinants, and consequences in Germany. In contrast
to the United States and the United Kingdom, where this topic has been covered
more extensively within a lasting tradition (Andersen, Tilley, & Heath, 2005; Delli
Carpini & Keeter, 1996; Luskin & Bullock, 2011), German social scientists have
48 Policy & Internet, 6:1

only recently discovered and highlighted the importance of political knowledge

in quantitative research (Maier, Glantz, & Bathelt, 2009).
Political knowledge is understood as a complex, multi-dimensional phenome-
non with a lot of existing definitions and concepts (Vollmar, 2012, p. 90 ff.). This
article focuses on an established approach in survey research: Measuring political
knowledge in the empirical analyses as knowledge about political facts (Vetter &
Maier, 2005; Westle, 2005); in this context about parties’ positions. With this focus
of facts, which can be measured relatively well in survey research compared to
other forms of political knowledge, the study cannot investigate more complex
patterns of knowledge (Vollmar, 2012, p. 90 ff.).
Measuring the political knowledge of citizens, which can be categorized as
information about political actors, structures, and topics, is a demanding task,
because there is no list of valid indicators to measure these categories
(Maier, 2009, p. 395). This reflects awareness that there is no consensus about
what citizens should know. From a methodological perspective, the level of
citizens’ political information is often measured by the number of correct answers
to knowledge questions, which are then counted and summated in additive
indices (Maier, 2009, p. 397). By applying normative standards, the citizens fall
short in possessing a good political knowledge when drawing on results of
representative survey data: “There now seems to be a near-consensus that by
anything approaching elite standards most citizens think and know jaw-
droppingly little about politics” (Luskin, 2002, p. 282; see also Converse, 2000).
Despite an increase in formal education and an expansion of mass media, the
political knowledge of citizens in Germany is relatively stable in a longitudinal
perspective, for example, knowledge about the voting system at the Federal level.
At these elections, the voters have two votes. With the first vote, they elect a
direct candidate of their constituency by relative majority voting. However, for
the distribution of the seats in parliament the second vote—the vote for a party—
which characterizes the electoral system as a proportional system, is more
important. Maier et al. (2009) show with secondary data analysis that the share of
correct answers of the widely used question if the first or second vote is overall
more important is only about 40–57 percent between the 1980s and 2007.
However, short-term dynamics can be observed in the electoral cycle: In the final
stage of the election campaign prior to important elections, there is an increase
in the knowledge about the voting system, which drops back right after
(Karp, 2006).
Studies that track the determinants and consequences of political knowledge
in Germany arrive at the following conclusions: A number of studies (Maier,
2009; Vetter & Maier, 2005; Westle, 2005, 2006) have found evidence that a high
level of formal education, strong interest in politics, the use of quality media for
political information and high subjective political competence are the strongest
predictors that positively influence political knowledge. Furthermore, it can be
observed that while women have a lower political knowledge than men, they
tend to provide fewer incorrect answers, instead using the “do not know”
category more frequently. Besides these variables that exert the most impact on
Schultze: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions 49

political knowledge it is notable that occupation, church attendance, membership

in a trade union or a party as well as a party identification regularly only play a
minor role or have no significant effect on the political knowledge of the
electorate in the German political system (Vetter & Maier, 2005, pp. 72–3). In
terms of the consequences of political knowledge, Johann (2012) found out that a
high knowledge about political actors has a positive effect on the intention to
vote, while high knowledge about political processes has a positive effect on non-
voting modes of political participation.
The observed low level of political knowledge of the citizenry has immediate
implications for theory building in political science; particularly for issue voting
and theories trying to explain strategic split tickets. The empirical finding that
only about the half of the electorate is familiar with the fact that the second vote
in the German system is more important than the first one stands in contrast to
the central assumptions of strategic voting: That the citizens have a rough idea of
how the parties score in the polls, that they are aware of possible coalitions and
the 5 percent threshold in Germany, and that they know how to use their first
and second votes, in order to cast a strategic split ticket. These are ambitious
assumptions about the information level of the citizens that are not supported by
empirical data for a majority of people in Germany. Westle (2005, p. 508) shows,
for example, that misinformation about the voting system is more widespread
than a correct understanding, which leads to irrational voting behavior.
Misinformation about the voting system or the policy positions of parties that
leads to voting contrary to the citizens’ preferences is a central question in the
research area about correct voting and its consequences for the democratic quality
of the electoral process (Kraft & Schmitt-Beck, 2013; Lau, Andersen, &
Redlawsk, 2008; Lau & Redlawsk, 1997; Rosema & de Vries, 2011; Sokhey &
McClurg, 2012).
In this respect, political knowledge is equally important for concepts of issue
voting that are based on rational choice arguments (Downs, 1957). In most of
such cases, the voting decision is explained on the basis of a concordance
between party positions and individual preferences, without taking into account
the level of political information of the respondents (Debus, 2007; Fournier, Blais,
Nadeau, Gidengil, & Nevitte, 2003; Herrmann, 2008). This is a demanding
assumption, due to the fact that the knowledge of citizens about political topics
is lower than their knowledge about political structures or actors (Maier
et al., 2009, p. 572). Indeed, empirical studies show that citizens in Germany can
place themselves and the major parties on a left–right scale—which can be seen
as a super issue—in a correct order, and also roughly in other spatial models
(Pappi & Brandenburg, 2012). This means that voters understand the ideology of
parties in terms of left and right. However, when asked about important, but
specific policy positions, which are written down in party and election
manifestos and which in most cases could be deduced from the party’s
ideological position, it can be observed that most citizens are not able to do this
correctly. Thus, they have very small political knowledge of specific positions
(Rölle, 2002) and the danger of incorrect voting based on misinformation exists.
50 Policy & Internet, 6:1

For example, Westle (2005, p. 507) estimates the share of voters that have chosen
their party based on misinformation about policy positions at about 20 percent in
the Western and 30 percent in the Eastern part of Germany for the 2002 Federal
Election. According to these findings, it is important not only to take the level of
political information into account, but also the level of misinformation among
the electorate.
Therefore, a differentiation between correct answers (“objective knowl-
edge”) and incorrect answers (“subjective knowledge”) is helpful (Vetter &
Maier, 2005, p. 55; Westle, 2005), supplemented by the answer category “do not
know” explicitly expressing a lack of knowledge. For the individual voting
decision, a low objective political knowledge about party positions is not
necessarily problematic, because such a decision can be based on numerous
heuristics like attitudes toward the political candidates and their attributes, or a
social group tie or party attachment, which are all important determinants for
explaining voting behavior in Germany (Arzheimer & Schoen, 2007; Keller-
mann & Rattinger, 2005; Roßteutscher, 2012; Schoen, 2011). Even for issue-
orientated voters, broad knowledge is neither necessary nor realistic. Already
in 1964, Converse (1964, p. 245) showed that the electorate is divided into
various issue publics that are only interested in certain policy areas and that
possess a kind of expert knowledge only in their preferred policy fields (Anand
& Krosnick, 2003). In this context, Krosnick (1990, p. 82) refers to the people as
“cognitive misers” when pointing out that voters based their voting decisions
only on a few salient topics. This illustrates that even issue-orientated voters do
not necessarily need a broad political knowledge for a reasonable vote choice,
as long as they are aware of their lack of knowledge instead of being
misinformed.
In this regard, the mass media play a central role, because they create the
public sphere in which the voters can seek information and discuss political
topics and positions (Neidhardt, 1994). With the diffusion of the Internet, the
classical media system has changed and expanded remarkably (Gurevitch,
Coleman, & Blumler, 2009, p. 169; Schulz, 2011, p. 19). The range of political
information available for citizens online has never been higher than today,
although its share is small compared to the enormous amount of nonpolitical
content on the Web (Emmer, 2005; Emmer & Wolling, 2010).
Indeed, there are different empirical findings concerning whether the Internet
is used as a substitute (van Eimeren & Frees, 2011, p. 343; Faas & Partheymüller,
2011) or is complementary to other media (Emmer, Vowe, & Wolling, 2011;
Kolo, 2010) for political information and communication. However, it is not in
doubt that these new media cause changes in individual communication
behavior. Investigating the “media effects” (Lin, 2009) of Internet applications is a
rather challenging endeavor due to the heterogeneous formats of such applica-
tions. Because the Internet is a technical operating system and a “first-order
medium,” encompassing numerous “second-order media” characterized by
semiotic, institutional, and organizational heterogeneity (Beck, 2010, p. 17),
Schultze: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions 51

potential effects can vary in their nature and strength and should therefore be
investigated specifically for each application.
The German VAA, as a form of political online communication (Emmer
et al., 2011), is such a second-order medium of the Internet that is analyzed here
using such an application-focused approach. The Wahl-O-Mat and other VAAs
have the potential to increase the political information level of the electorate and
to reduce the level of misinformation by making people aware of relevant issues
prior to elections.
For this purpose, the German VAA offers a selection of 38 policy issues that
statistically differentiate the political parties running for election. The parties are
asked to position themselves on a long list of policy issues and to provide reasons
for their positions. The policy issues are in the form of short statements that are
worked out by an editorial board consisting of young and first-time voters, social
scientists, and experts from various disciplines. Party manifestos and party
statements serve as the basis for the selection and formulation of the statements
(Marschall, 2011). The statements are written in a short and clear way, so that
users can easily understand them and take their positions (e.g., “genetically
manipulated food should not be produced in Germany”). For each issue, the user
can choose to agree or disagree with the statement, to take a “neutral” stance, or
to skip it. It is possible to go back to an issue and change the stance at any time.
Before the tool calculates the degree of proximity between the users’ positions
and the parties’ positions, the users can choose to weight the statements they
consider more important. These count double in the proximity calculation. After
this step, users can choose up to eight parties out of a list of all parties registered
for the election and compare the results. For the parties chosen, the tool calculates
the proximity between the self-positioning of the user and each party according
to the city-block method (Marschall & Schmidt, 2010). The result is presented as a
ranking list, beginning with the party with the highest proximity to the user’s
position. Moreover, the positions of all the parties chosen for the comparison are
listed in a form that allows the users to compare their positions (see the
Appendix). The users can also choose to read the reasoning of the parties. The
potential effects of VAAs arise due to this special format: They confront citizens
with numerous issues about which the users might otherwise not have been
informed or explicitly positioned themselves. As a consequence, the tools may to
a certain degree be able to resolve the selectivity of political information seeking
in the Internet, that otherwise proceeds along the issue publics of the voters
(Kim, 2009).
Whether such tools can meet the expectation of informing people in a broader
sense is rarely covered by research from an international perspective. Early
research about these tools has been focused on more descriptive questions
concerning characterization of users, and how they differ in terms of their socio-
demographic backgrounds and political attitudes from the entire electorate, but
also compared to the online population (Hooghe & Teepe, 2007; Marschall, 2011;
Wall, Sudulich, Costello, & Leon, 2009). In an international perspective, the users
of the tools can be consistently characterized as young, well educated, and
52 Policy & Internet, 6:1

politically interested, with a slightly higher share of men using the tool (De
Rosa, 2010; Marschall & Schultze, 2012c; Wall et al., 2009). With the growing
popularity of VAAs—evidenced by the rising number of these tools across
Europe and the increasing share of voters that use them—the attention paid to
the quality of results they generate has increased. Therefore, another area of VAA
research has focused on the impact of different calculation methods on the
presented results (Louwerse & Rosema, 2013; Mendez, 2012), as well as on
methodological questions about the assessment of policy statements and different
possibilities to map party positions with such information (Ladner, Felder,
Gerber, & Fivaz, 2010; Ramonaitė, 2010; Walgrave, Nuytemans, & Pepermans,
2009).
However, the majority of studies have focused on potential VAA effects on
the political behavior of users. Taking the German case as an example, it has
been shown that the Wahl-O-Mat had an effect on voter turnout for the 2009
German Federal Election: Having controlled specific characteristics of the users
of this tool, as well as other variables that usually explain the intention to vote,
the usage of the Wahl-O-Mat had a significant positive effect on the probability
of going to the ballot box (Marschall & Schultze, 2012a). This result supports
other studies gauging the mobilization capacity of VAAs (Ladner &
Pianzola, 2010; Mykkänen & Moring, 2006). Beside the influence on the
intention to vote, a number of studies have analyzed a possible change of the
voting decision due to the use of these Internet applications, reaching
ambiguous conclusions concerning the strength of such effects (Ladner &
Pianzola, 2010; Marschall, 2005; Mykkänen & Moring, 2006; Wall, Krouwel, &
Vitiello, 2012).
In contrast to this large body of studies dealing with the impact of these tools
on political behavior, the possible effects of VAAs on political knowledge have
been seldom studied, or at best addressed tangentially (Marschall &
Schmidt, 2010; Pianzola, 2011). With the exception of a study about the Swiss
VAA “smartvote” (Fivaz & Nadig, 2010), this effect has so far—to my best
knowledge—not been taken into account systematically as a central research
question. For the German case, this study is therefore of an explorative nature.
The expectation regarding the relationship of Wahl-O-Mat usage and political
knowledge is rather obvious: The Wahl-O-Mat can increase political knowledge
about party positions by confronting users with numerous issues and a
comparison of their own stances and the policy positions of the parties. This
should lead to a learning effect among the users about political topics, especially
beyond their individual issue publics. In this respect, the process of knowledge
acquisition via VAAs depends on the form of political knowledge. Specific
knowledge about party positions should be primarily gained by comparing and
memorizing the policy positions on the result screen of the Wahl-O-Mat, while
general political knowledge should be generated by discussing the results with
other people, especially a surprising party sequence in the proximity calculations
(Marschall & Schmidt, 2010). A possible learning effect through collecting and
processing new political information is thereby an important precondition for an
Schultze: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions 53

explanation of a change in the voting intention and voting decision, and a step
forward in terms of identifying and understanding cognitive processes in voting
behavior. Furthermore, it can be shown (at least for the Wahl-O-Mat), whether
and under which conditions political online communication can have an impact
on citizens.

Data, Methods, and Operationalization

To establish whether VAAs have an effect on political knowledge, a pre-

election survey of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES)1 with a focus
on the election campaign is used for secondary data analyses. The data set
contains questions about the Wahl-O-Mat as well as knowledge questions about
party positions, whose wordings are identical to policy statements in the German
VAA. The survey was conducted shortly before the 2009 German Federal Election
(September 18–26) and was realized online with a standardized questionnaire.
About 65,000 active members of the “Respondi” online access panel2 constitute
the total population. The sample for the online survey is based on quotas taking
into account gender, education, and age; the respondents were invited in several
waves in order to meet the target quotas. The analysis draws on 1,153 completed
questionnaires.3 The data set also included an adjustment variable for the entire
online population in Germany at the age of 18 and older based on the German
“(N)Onliner-Atlas 2008.”4 This adjustment variable is used in all following
analyses to weight the sample and to achieve approximate online representative-
ness of the findings. Of course, the results cannot be transferred to the whole
German electorate, as the data set is not a random sample of the eligible voters,
but a quota sample of the part of the German online population which is entitled
to vote.
After descriptive findings about the level of political information and
misinformation about party positions, as well as about the usage of the Wahl-O-
Mat, a possible learning effect of the German VAA on political knowledge is
estimated by calculating a path model for categorical data (Hayes, Slater, &
Snyder, 2008). Using the Mplus 6.11 software package (Muthén & Muthén, 2010)
and its estimation approach, a set of probit regression coefficients is calculated,
taken the categorical level of measurement of the dependent variables adequately
into account (Muthén & Muthén, 2010, p. 35). Besides the variables of political
knowledge and Wahl-O-Mat usage important control variables in the path model
are considered, following the analysis and selection of variables of a study
conducted by Hirzalla, van Zoonen, and de Ridder (2011). With this approach, it
is tested whether the use of the Wahl-O-Mat has an independent effect on
political knowledge about party positions.
Political knowledge is operationalized as pure factual knowledge: It was
asked in terms of the positions of the five major national parties in Germany on
the following three issues: (1) a lifespan extension for nuclear power plants; (2)
the introduction of a minimum wage; and (3) the prohibition of the use of
governmental spyware. Therefore, 15 knowledge questions can be included in the
54 Policy & Internet, 6:1

analyses. These three political issues were relevant prior to the 2009 German
Federal Election, and the parties of analysis (CDU, SPD, FDP, Greens, and Left
Party) had clear positions on these policy proposals in the election campaign.
Statements about these topics were also included in the Wahl-O-Mat using the
identical wording used in the online survey and were answered by the parties
according to their election manifestos. However, it must be acknowledged that
these knowledge questions about the three issues in the GLES online survey do
not cover the full range of statements that are presented in the Wahl-O-Mat, but
are the only variables that are included in the GLES data set for studying political
knowledge about party positions. The use of the Wahl-O-Mat, including the
observation of the parties’ positions toward these issues on the results page,
should have a corresponding positive effect on the political knowledge of German
VAA users about these positions.
In the GLES online survey, respondents were asked these political knowl-
edge questions as closed questions with the response categories if the parties
“agree,” “disagree,” or have “neutral” positions on these statements.5 Further-
more, it was possible to express a lack of knowledge with the “do not know”
category. Due to these answer possibilities, it can be differentiated between
correct answers, incorrect answers, and a reflexive lack of knowledge (i.e.,
explicit “do not know”) of the respondents (Vetter & Maier, 2005, p. 55;
Westle, 2005). Table 1 summarizes the exact wording of the statements that are
used in the Wahl-O-Mat as well as in the GLES survey and shows the party
positions on these issues.

Table 1. Wording of the Statements in the Wahl-O-Mat, Respectively, in the GLES Survey and Parties’
Positions

Positions of the Parties

Wording in German and English Agree Neutral Disagree

Lifespan extension for nuclear power plants CDU SPD

German: Die Laufzeit von Atomkraftwerken soll verlängert werden. FDP Greens
English: Nuclear power plants should be kept running longer than Left
previously planned.
Introduction of a minimum wage SPD CDU
German: Einführung eines flächendeckenden gesetzlichen Greens FDP
Mindestlohnes. Left
English: A nationwide minimum wage should be introduced.
Prohibition of governmental spyware Greens CDU
German: Die verdeckte Online-Durchsuchung privater Computer FDP SPD
durch Sicherheitsbehörden soll verboten werden. Left
English: German authorities should be banned from conducting secret
online investigations of private computers.

Notes: Wording in the GLES survey is identical with the wording in the Wahl-O-Mat. The
following question was asked in the GLES survey initially, before asking about the
perceived positions of the parties: “Bitte geben Sie zu den einzelnen Vorschlägen jeweils
an, ob die einzelnen Parteien diese Ihrer Meinung nach eher unterstützen, eher ablehnen
oder ob sie ihnen neutral gegenüber stehen?” [“Please indicate to each of the proposals, if
in your opinion the parties rather support, rather decline or have a neutral position?”].
Schultze: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions 55

Descriptive results about the distribution of correct and incorrect answers are
presented next, for the three policy positions of the five parties. The correct
answers are then summated, categorized, and related to the use of the Wahl-O-
Mat.

Descriptive Analyses of Political Knowledge and Wahl-O-Mat Usage

Table 2 shows the share of correct and incorrect answers of the respondents
for the 15 knowledge questions. Most widely known, with 71 percent correct
answers, is the Greens’ position against a lifespan extension for nuclear power
plants, which can be explained by the linkage of this policy position with the
party’s creation, and by the issue ownership of the Greens concerning environ-
mental issues in the German electorate. Most unknown is the position of the FDP
to this policy statement: Only 37.3 percent of the respondents know that the
liberal party supports a lifespan extension of such plants, which they extensively
communicated in the 2009 election campaign.
While 61.2 percent of the respondents can judge the position of the CDU for a
lifespan extension correctly, the position against such an extension of the SPD is
only known by 53.6 percent of the German online population. Better known is the
position of the Social Democrats for the introduction of a minimum wage, a key
issue of their 2009 election campaign. In general, the share of correct answers for
this issue is similar compared to the question about nuclear power plants, but
shows a different distribution across the parties. A comparable number of
respondents can correctly identify the position of the SPD (60.9 percent) and the
Left Party (58.9 percent) in support of the introduction of a minimum wage. On
the other hand, with about 40–50 percent correct answers, the level of knowledge
for the other parties (CDU, FDP, and Greens) is considerable lower. In contrast to
these two issues, the policy positions of any parties concerning a prohibition of
the use of governmental spyware are widely unknown in the online electorate, as
the very low level of information indicates. Lowest in this respect are the correct
evaluations of the FDP and SPD toward this topic: Only 19.8 percent knew that

Table 2. Correct and Incorrect Answers About Policy Positions of the Parties in Percent

CDU SPD Greens FDP Left

Lifespan extension for nuclear power plants

Correct 61.2 53.6 71.0 37.3 47.8
Incorrect 17.6 22.7 9.0 32.0 15.3
Do not know 21.3 23.7 20.0 30.7 36.9
Introduction of a minimum wage
Correct 50.5 60.9 45.2 40.4 58.9
Incorrect 25.0 15.4 20.7 27.3 11.1
Do not know 24.6 23.7 34.1 32.4 29.9
Prohibition of the use of governmental spyware
Correct 41.4 20.2 33.4 19.8 33.4
Incorrect 21.3 38.5 23.0 36.0 21.2
Do not know 37.3 41.3 43.6 44.2 45.5
56 Policy & Internet, 6:1

the FDP supported and only 20.2 percent knew that the SPD was against a
prohibition of such spyware in the context of the 2009 German Federal Election.
All in all, the share of correct answers ranges between 20 and 70 percent for
the knowledge questions. However, it must be acknowledged that the respon-
dents represent the online electorate during the final stage of the electoral
campaign. This group has, compared to the entire electorate, a higher educational
attainment on average, and a higher interest in politics (Marschall &
Schultze, 2012b), which normally should lead to a higher level of political
information. Therefore, it can be assumed that a representative survey of the
entire German voting population would reveal an even lower level of political
knowledge.
Table 2 also shows the share of respondents who are misinformed about
party positions, reflected by incorrect answers. The frontrunner is the position of
the SPD against a prohibition of the use of governmental spyware: 38.5 percent
are misinformed about this position, clearly outnumbering persons who are
correctly informed (20.2 percent). A similar discrepancy between correct and
incorrect answers can be found for positions of the FDP: The share of
misinformed respondents is relatively high for all policy statements (between 27.3
and 36.0 percent). Concerning the question of a prohibition of the use of
governmental spyware, the share of misinformed people outnumbers the share of
respondents who correctly answered (36 vs. 19.8 percent).
The smallest amount of misinformation can be observed for the Greens’
position against nuclear power plants (9 percent), and all positions of the Left
Party (between 11.1 and 21.2 percent). In general, the range of misinformation
varies enormously between 9 and 38.5 percent. The “do not know” category was
extensively used, ranging from 20 to 45.5 percent. Taking into account that these
issues were intensively covered in the mass media, the amount of misinformation
and do not knows immediately before the 2009 Federal Election is high among the
online electorate.
For the further analyses, only the correct answers are taken into account.
Figure 1 shows the degree of political knowledge about party positions by
summating the number of correct answers of the 15 knowledge questions for all
respondents. In the mode category, “0 correct answers” are mainly people
represented who either used the “do not know” category extensively or who
refused to answer this battery of questions. It is controversial how to deal with
such respondents. To avoid a too-optimistic distribution of the level of political
information, these cases were not dropped from the analyses, but were not
merged either with other categories in this study. Altogether, 16.1 percent of the
sample population can be classified in this category.
Following the methodological approach of Roy (2009, p. 125), the residual
respondents were arranged in three groups to represent the differences in their
levels of political information. According to this categorization, 23.9 percent of the
respondents have a low political knowledge about party positions (1–5 correct
answers), 33.5 percent possess a medium political knowledge (6–10 correct
answers), and 26.5 percent have a high level of information about party positions
Schultze: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions 57

Figure 1. Degree of Political Knowledge About Party Positions.

Note: Mean: 6.7; Standard Deviation: 4.6.

(11–15 correct answers). Therefore, the political knowledge of the online popula-
tion can be considered as exceedingly heterogeneous shortly before the 2009
Federal Election.6 Reasons for this heterogeneity may lie in the individual
belonging to one or more issue publics that are covered with these knowledge
questions, and that would favor political knowledge in these policy areas while
ignoring other policy fields (Krosnick, 1990). Furthermore, different sociodemo-
graphic characteristics such as political interest and education, as well as the
quality of sources used for political information, influence political knowledge
and explain the heterogeneity among the electorate (Vetter & Maier, 2005,
pp. 72–3). In the next section, the Wahl-O-Mat is integrated in the analyses. About
38.5 percent of the respondents reported having used the Wahl-O-Mat for the
2009 German Federal Election, demonstrating the popularity of the German VAA.
Table 3 shows the groups with different levels of information about party
positions cross tabbed with the use of the Internet application. The bivariate
frequency table draws a clear picture: Wahl-O-Mat users are more likely to have a
high political knowledge about party positions. From those respondents who
have used the tool, about 39.3 percent belong to the group of the highly informed

Table 3. Cross Tab for Political Knowledge About Party Positions and Wahl-O-Mat Usage
(Column Percent)

Grouped Number of Wahl-O-Mat Users (%) Nonusers (%) Total (%)

Correct Answers (N ¼ 440) (N ¼ 705) (N ¼ 1,145)

0 7.0 21.1 15.7

1–5 18.9 27.2 24.0
6–10 34.8 32.9 33.6
11–15 39.3 18.7 26.6
Cramer’s V 0.273

Note:  p < 0.01.

58 Policy & Internet, 6:1

people, and only 18.9 percent have a low political knowledge; only 7 percent of
Wahl-O-Mat users answered all questions incorrectly or refused to answer at all.
For the nonusers of the Wahl-O-Mat, the latter share, at 21.1 percent, is about
three times as high compared with users. Nonusers are disproportionally highly
represented in the group of people with low political information, while the
proportion of users and nonusers with a medium knowledge about party
positions is similar. Only 18.7 percent of nonusers can be characterized as being
highly politically informed in this context.
To summarize, the bivariate analysis shows that Wahl-O-Mat users have a
higher political knowledge about party positions than nonusers. The question of
whether this relationship is robust, which in this context means persistent when
controlled for relevant third variables, needs to be analyzed with more elaborate
multivariate analyses. These are presented in the next section.

Multivariate Analyses for the Effect of the Wahl-O-Mat on Political Knowledge

To answer the question of whether the Wahl-O-Mat is an important predictor

for political knowledge and whether it exerts a learning effect on party positions
according to the theoretical arguments presented in the previous sections, a non-
recursive path model is estimated to explain the political knowledge about party
positions as the central dependent variable.7 Age,8 education, and gender,9 as well
as political interest, are included as control variables in these analyses. The
selection of those variables and their causal, nonrecursive formation follows the
theoretical model of Hirzalla et al. (2011) with the important change that the use
of the Wahl-O-Mat is not the resultant of political knowledge, but—because of the
tools’ format as is argued in the theoretical section of this article—a determinant of
political knowledge. Because of the binary and categorical nature of the dependent
variables, all coefficients in Figure 2 represent probit coefficients, calculated with a
weighted least squares estimator (Muthén & Muthén, 2010, p. 35). Compared to
Hirzalla et al. (2011), this calculation approach has the advantage that the level of
measurement of the variables is adequately taken into account.
Besides this improvement, the following model still has some limitations and
restrictions. First of all, the selection of the variables and their causal order is, to a
certain extent, always disputable. In this respect, the most important variables
that are available in the data set are included in the analyses as control variables
by taking the adjusted theoretical model of Hirzalla et al. (2011) as a blue print.
As pointed out in the theoretical section, these are the most important predictors
for both Wahl-O-Mat usage and political knowledge. Nevertheless, these are only
a few variables, while other variables, which may also play a role for the level of
political knowledge and the use of the VAA (e.g., subjective political competence),
could not be included in the analyses.
Second, the path model is just identified, which means there are no degrees
of freedom left. This has two major implications: (1) besides pseudo-R2 there are
no measures to judge the quality of the model. Statistics on model fit like x2/df,
comparative fit index, or root mean square error of approximation are not
Schultze: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions 59

Figure 2. Path Model for the Explanation of Political Knowledge About Party Positions.
Notes:  p < 0.01. The figure shows the coefficients in the following way: unstandardized coefficient
(standard error) standardized coefficient. Only standardized coefficients are reported in the text.

available in a just identified model. (2) Modeling additional recursive effects

between variables in this model using cross-sectional data and having a just
identified model is not possible without relying on unrealistic restrictions on
other paths of the model (e.g., constraining other relationships to be 0). Such
restrictions are not implemented, thus the presented model is of a nonrecursive
nature. Even though it is not possible to model realistic recursive relationships
with the cross-sectional data set, alternative recursive specifications of the model,
which could be modeled with panel data, will be discussed briefly.
Such a specification would be a recursive effect between the use of the Wahl-
O-Mat and political interest, because VAAs can also motivate the users to inform
themselves further about politics (Marschall & Schmidt, 2010). Due to the model
restrictions mentioned above, the model can only include the main effect. In this
regard, the assumption is that a generalized political attitude like political interest
should rather be a determinant for the use of the Wahl-O-Mat as a very specific
form of political communication than vice versa. The same argument fits for a
possible recursive relationship between the usage of the Wahl-O-Mat and political
knowledge. Again, it must be acknowledged that only the main effect can be
considered: Wahl-O-Mat usage as the independent variable presents information
on policy positions of the parties at the result screen that should positively
influence the specific form of political knowledge about party positions in this
model.
60 Policy & Internet, 6:1

For more complex models taking recursive effects into account and for
disentangling the causal relationships between those variables, studies that use
panel data or experimental designs (Pianzola, Trechsel, Schwerdt, Vassil, &
Alvarez, 2012) are needed. Acknowledging these assumptions and limitations, the
presentation of results of the nonrecursive path model in Figure 2 follows the
recommendation of Kline (2011, p. 40): Unstandardized coefficient (standard
error) standardized coefficient. The standardized estimates can be compared
directly for an analysis of the strength of the effects.
First of all it can be observed that all path coefficients—with the exception of
gender to Wahl-O-Mat usage—are significant at the 1 percent level and that the
including variables in the model provide a good explanatory power for the
political knowledge about party positions, as indicated by the pseudo-R2
(McKelvey and Zavoina) of about 0.4. In the model, age shows a very interesting
effect: It exerts a moderate direct positive effect on political knowledge, as well as
an indirect positive effect via political interest. Furthermore, a higher age has a
negative effect on the usage of the German VAA. On the contrary, the usage of
the Wahl-O-Mat itself has a moderate positive effect on political knowledge,
similar to the effect of political interest on political knowledge.
Formal educational attainment has, compared to the previous effects, a lower
direct impact on political knowledge, but mainly shapes the level of information
about party positions via the indirect path of political interest. However, the
influence of education on the usage of the German VAA is comparatively low.
Major determinants of the Wahl-O-Mat usage are therefore rather a high political
interest and a younger age, and rather not educational attainment. Furthermore,
gender has no impact on the use of the tool in this multivariate perspective, but it
does on political knowledge.
Male respondents have, compared to their female counterparts, a higher
interest in politics and a higher political knowledge about party positions. Also
taking into account the moderate indirect effect from gender via political interest
to political knowledge, this leads to the conclusion that gender has a strong total
impact on political knowledge, as shown in Table 4. Education and especially
political interest also have a strong total effect on political knowledge of party
positions, while the overall effect of age is comparatively low. This is due to the
negative path from age via Wahl-O-Mat to political knowledge, weakening the
overall effect of age, despite the other positive direct and indirect paths from age
to political knowledge.
To summarize: It can be observed that the Wahl-O-Mat has a moderate
positive effect on political knowledge, controlling for important variables in a
multivariate perspective, which empirically supports the formulated expectation
concerning a learning effect of the tool about party positions.

Discussion and Conclusion

Political knowledge is an important resource for the exertion of meaningful

political participation by citizens in democracies. This study’s aim was to combine
Schultze: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions 61

Table 4. Unstandardized and Standardized Indirect and Total Effects

Indirect effects

Age ! interest ! Wahl-O-Mat 0.047 (0.011) 0.054

Age ! Wahl-O-Mat ! knowledge 0.089 (0.017) 0.101

Age ! interest ! Wahl-O-Mat ! knowledge 0.013 (0.004) 0.015

Gender ! interest ! knowledge 0.223 (0.037) 0.086
Gender ! Wahl-O-Mat ! knowledge 0.030 (0.031) 0.012

Gender ! interest ! Wahl-O-Mat ! knowledge 0.064 (0.015) 0.025

Education ! interest ! knowledge 0.143 (0.024) 0.085

Education ! Wahl-O-Mat ! knowledge 0.058 (0.022) 0.035

Education ! interest ! Wahl-O-Mat ! knowledge 0.041 (0.01) 0.024

Interest ! Wahl-O-Mat ! knowledge 0.100 (0.022) 0.087
Total effects

Age 0.183 (0.027) 0.209

Gender 0.757 (0.079) 0.293

Education 0.515 (0.051) 0.308

Interest 0.454 (0.044) 0.389

Notes:  p < 0.01. The coefficients are presented in the following way: unstandardized
coefficient (standard error) standardized coefficient.

empirical research on political knowledge in Germany—here conceptualized as

factual knowledge—with VAA research in order to establish whether the German
Wahl-O-Mat can exert a positive influence on political knowledge about party
positions. Therefore, an online survey conducted shortly before the 2009 German
Federal Election was used for secondary data analyses. The results show that the
level of political knowledge is heterogeneous among the online electorate, and
that the amount of political misinformation is sizable for certain party positions.
Users of the Wahl-O-Mat possess a higher level of information compared to
nonusers.
The related expectation that the German VAA has a positive impact on
political knowledge was empirically supported: In a multivariate path model, a
positive effect of the Wahl-O-Mat on political knowledge about party positions
could be identified, even when controlling for relevant third variables, which
normally explain to a certain degree the variation in the use of the Wahl-O-Mat,
as well as in political knowledge. According to these analyses, the observed
positive impact of the Wahl-O-Mat on political knowledge is not due to the
specific characteristics of the typical users of such tools, but is an independent
effect. In particular, the format of the Wahl-O-Mat, which presents the users with
numerous questions and topics beyond their own issue publics, offers an
explanation for the potential effectiveness of the tool.
What conclusions can be drawn concerning the impact of political online
communication on political behavior and knowledge? VAAs obviously have
effects on their users, as research has shown in an international perspective
(Garzia & Marschall, 2012). The analyses conducted here have focused on an
effect, which is seldom addressed systematically in VAA research, but which is
an important precondition for the explanation of a change in political behavior.
The findings of a positive VAA effect on the voting intention can be explained
further with a change in the political knowledge. For political participation and
62 Policy & Internet, 6:1

discussion, information about party positions on relevant issues in the election

campaign is necessary (Norris, 2000; Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005). The
effect of the German VAA on political knowledge about those party positions,
and as a consequence a change in the individual information repertoire, seems to
be the underlying cognitive process for the positive impact of the Wahl-O-Mat on
the intention to vote. Therefore, the analyses support the optimistic view that the
Internet is capable of political mobilization (Gibson et al., 2005; Martin, 2012;
Owen, 2006). However, the findings cannot be transferred to political online
communication in general, because second-order media have different formats
and potential effectiveness (Beck, 2010), and need to be studied in an application-
specific approach. However, the analyses presented here, as well as related work,
support the empirical finding that the German VAA as a second-order Internet
medium exerts effects on political behavior and knowledge, and is therefore
politically relevant.
Nevertheless, the limitations of the presented path model for analyzing the
learning effect must be acknowledged. Due to a lack of appropriated data,
especially panel data, more complex models that take into account recursive
effects and effects over time between knowledge about party positions, political
interest, and Wahl-O-Mat usage, could not be analyzed. Variables were also
missing in the data set that would have allowed to consider the issue importance
of the respondents in relation to their political knowledge for certain party
positions, explaining why people have a heterogeneous level of information for
different party positions. In this context, the assumption is that the individual
belonging to one (or several) issue publics favors political knowledge in these
policy areas, while low political knowledge indicates a low salience of the
position for the individual. Other media effects on political knowledge could not
be taken into account in these analyses either.
Therefore, a couple of related research questions arise for further studies:
How are VAAs connected to other forms of political communication, and what is
the interplay between these forms of political communication and their contribu-
tion to explaining political behavior and knowledge? Experimental studies and
analyses with panel data should focus on revealing the cognitive processes that
come from using VAAs to further explain under which conditions a change in the
level of information leads to a change in political behavior. Studies that address
these questions in a comparative perspective are needed for a better understand-
ing of the social mechanisms by which VAAs could influence citizens in different
institutional settings.
Empirical findings on political knowledge, as well as its determinants and
consequences, are important if we are to avoid making too-optimistic assump-
tions about the political behavior of citizens in theory building; which is
especially important for theories of rational choice-based split ticket and issue
voting. A systematic consideration of the factual level of information of the voters
also allows a more detailed explanation of voting behavior. For instance, Roy
(2009) could show for the Canadian electorate that there is heterogeneity in the
level of information and that this has an impact on the process of the decision
Schultze: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions 63

making at the ballot boxes. Thus, low informed citizens take into account fewer
and simpler considerations for casting a vote, while highly informed voters rely
on more complex considerations for their voting decision.
Findings of political knowledge also have important implications for political
education. It is controversial what level of knowledge about political facts is
necessary or desirable, and how to integrate and measure more complex forms of
political knowledge in order to obtain a realistic picture of the political
sophistication of citizens. However, a high level of misinformation in the
electorate, leading to decisions against their own political preferences, is not
compatible with the claim of an enlightened citizenry in Western democracies.
Therefore, not only political actors and the mass media are responsible to make
politics and political processes understandable and transparent, but also citizens
should inform themselves better about politics (Trankovits, 2012). The Wahl-O-
Mat and similar tools throughout Europe are in this respect an important means
by which citizens can become informed, at least about party positions, in an
efficient, time-saving, and neutral way. The enormous public demand of VAAs,
reaching a remarkable share of the electorate in many European countries
(Cedroni & Garzia, 2010), underscores the value of such tools for political
education and participation. By confronting the citizenry with relevant policy
statements, such tools contribute toward a more enlightened and more issue-
orientated electorate.

Martin Schultze is a researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the Department of

Social Sciences at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf/Germany [martin.
schultze@uni-duesseldorf.de].

Notes

The author would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editors of Policy & Internet for
valued comments on a previous draft of this article, as well as Susan Djahangard-Mahboob, Melissa
Schiefer, and Nadine Zwiener for their support in preparing the manuscript.

1. http://gles.eu/wordpress/english/.
2. http://www.respondi.com/en/home.html.
3. Information on the sampling and weighting of the sample can be found in the method report:
www.gesis.org/wahlen/gles/daten-und-dokumente/daten/. The data set used for the analyses in
this article can also be downloaded from this website.
4. The report can be found online: www.initiatived21.de/wp-content/uploads/alt/08_NOA/
NONLINER2008.pdf.
5. All party positions were clearly for or against the formulated policy statements, therefore answers
of respondents stated a “neutral position” were treated as incorrect answers.
6. It must be mentioned that with this common procedure of using a summation index, issue- and
party-related variations in the political knowledge of the respondents could not been taken into
account in the further analyses.
7. The variable that measures the political knowledge in these analyses is the grouped number of
correct answers to the 15 knowledge questions, differentiating between varying levels of
information of the respondents. The decision to use the grouped number of correct answers and
therefore a categorical variable instead of the ungrouped number of correct answers as a
continuous variable has two reasons: First, to avoid a model with a combination from linear and
64 Policy & Internet, 6:1

probit regression coefficients that would be estimated treating the dependent variable as
continuous and second to avoid biased estimates for this continuous dependent variable in such a
model, because the distribution of the ungrouped variable that count the number of correct
answers is far away from normal.
8. Age is integrated in these analyses by dividing it by 10 to avoid an extreme range of values for
this variable.
9. Reference category for gender is “female.”

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Appendix: Result Screen of the Wahl-O-Mat for the 2009 German Federal
Election