Political Learning from Presidential Debates Author(s): Thomas M. Holbrook Reviewed work(s): Source: Political Behavior, Vol.

21, No. 1 (Mar., 1999), pp. 67-89 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/586586 . Accessed: 22/02/2012 19:25
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Political Behavior, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1999

FROMPRESIDENTIAL LEARNING POLITICAL DEBATES

Thomas M. Holbrook
This paper focuses on an important aspect of presidential debates: the degree to which voters are able to glean candidate information from them. Using an openended measure of candidate information, the analysis tests hypotheses concerning the impact of debates on information acquisition among the mass public for all debates from 1976 to 1996. The findings indicate that people do learn from debates and that learning is affected by the context in which the information is encountered. Specifically, early debates generate more learning than do subsequent debates, and the public tends to learn more about candidates with whom they are relatively unfamiliar than about better-known candidates.

An area of increasing interest among students of electoral politics is the impact of political campaigns on voting behavior and elections. A number of analyses, looking at many different aspects of campaigns and using many different types of data, have illustrated that campaigns have considerable influence over the contours of candidate support (Bartels, 1993; Campbell et al., 1992; Finkel, 1993; Geer, 1988; Holbrook, 1996; Lanoue, 1991, 1992; Shaw, 1995; Shelley and Hwang, 1991). This is not to say that campaigns alone determine election outcomes, or even that they are the most important determinant of election outcomes, only that campaigns are one of the important factors that help to shape the eventual outcome. While it is clear that campaigns influence public opinion, the process that underlies this influence remains somewhat a mystery. The most reasonable explanation for campaign effects is that campaigns influence public opinion by generating persuasive information-information that, once acquired, has potential to move the electorate in one direction or the other. Popkin (1991) argues that the typical voter is not very sophisticated and is in great need of the information produced by campaigns, and it is this need for information that makes voters susceptible to persuasion by the campaigns. Gelman and
Thomas M. Holbrook, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201. 67
? 1999 0190-9320/99/0300-0067$16.00/0 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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HOLBROOK

King (1993) also point to the information-producingfunction of the campaign as an important explanationfor why elections are so predictable. According to Gelman and King, as campaigns unfold, they provide voters with information that enables them to make "enlightened"decisions-decisions that reflect the influence of fundamental variables such as partisanship and retrospective judgments. It is this assumption-that voters learn from campaigns-that is investigated in this paper. Specifically, this analysis documents the amount of information acquisition that takes place following presidential debates and specifies the conditions under which information acquisition is most likely to occur.

INFORMATION PROCESSINGDURING PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS For the purposes of this paper, political learning is defined as the acquisition of political information as a consequence of exposure to the campaign process. The focus of this definition is on information acquisition, which is very similar to what Zaller (1992) refers to as the "reception" of political information in his work on attitude formation. According to Zaller, the "reception" of informationhas two stages: In order for voters to receive information they must (a) be exposed to it and (b) comprehend it (Zaller, 1992, p. 42; see also Zaller and Price, 1993). This analysistreats information acquisition as something analogous to "comprehension"and focuses on a very simple research question: Do voters possess, or are voters able to recall, more candidate information following major campaign events, such as debates, than they possessed prior to that event? In other words, does the electorate learn from debates?

Alternative Models of Information Acquisition Different informationprocessing models have different implications for the amount of information acquisition one might expect during a political campaign. Generally speaking, information processing models can be placed into one of two different categories: memory-based and on-line models (Hastie and Park, 1986). Briefly, memory-based models assume that voters acquire and store information over the course of a campaign and then search their long-term memory for relevant pieces of information at the moment of decision. On-line models, on the other hand, assume that voters integrate information into evaluations of the candidates as the information is encountered, making adjustments in something analogous to a "runningtally"of candidate evaluations, and have little need to store informationin their long-term mem-

POLITICAL LEARNING FROM PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

69

ory (Lau, 1995; Lodge et al., 1989; Lodge and Stroh, 1993; Lodge et al., 1995). Zaller (1992) offers what he calls a "bounded"on-line model as an alternative to the on-line/memory-based dichotomy. In essence, the bounded on-line model does not argue with the idea of a running tally, but suggests instead that there is no reason to assume that new information is used to update all relevant attitudes or that people do not still have a need to store political information that can be used at some later point. If the on-line model accurately describes information processing during presidential campaigns, it would be expected that voters will hold very little in terms of specific information about the candidates (Lodge et al., 1989). As a result, we may not see significant patterns of information acquisition following important campaign events, because voters have little incentive to store information in their long-term memory. On the other hand, to the degree that the memory-based or "bounded"on-line models apply to voter decision making, we might expect to see clearer patterns of information acquisition following the debates. Conditions for Information Acquisition Whether the process is on-line or memory-based, there are other expectations concerning the conditions under which one might expect a given piece of campaign information to be most useful and, hence, likely to be acquired. In particular,the value of a given piece of information is likely to be a function of the relative scarcity of, and demand for, information at the time it is encountered. If voters have been exposed to relatively little information about a particular candidate, each additional piece of information is not likely to have been previously encountered and may be deemed relevant to the candidate evaluation and incorporated into long-term memory. On the other hand, if voters have already been exposed to large amounts of information about a candidate, the likelihood of an additional piece of information being relevant-or new-is relatively low. The demand for information should also affect its value. Information may be availablefor consumption, but if demand is low, it is of very little value. For instance, campaign information is likely to be more useful to undecided voters than to people who have already decided how they will vote. If this is the case, then as the campaign progresses and more people decide how to vote, there should be less demand for information, even though it is in plentiful supply. Based on these assumptions, one might expect campaign information to be most useful and demonstrate the greatest impact (a) during the early stages of the campaign, when there is relatively little information available and when there is a larger stock of undecided voters, who should be seeking informa-

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tion, and (b) when the information pertains to candidates about whom voters have relatively little information and less clearly formed impressions-usually the candidate from the challenging party (all elections since 1956 have involved an incumbent president or vice president). These assumptions find partial support in the work of Brady and Johnston (1987), who examined political learning during the 1984 primary campaign and found that people learned much more about lesser-known candidates than about Reagan and Mondale, as long as information about the lesser knowns was available. Although the emphasis in this analysis is on informationacquisition, studies of the persuasive impact of campaigns also suggest that the conditions under which information is encountered affect the way it is processed. Although these studies focus on persuasion rather than on informationacquisition, they bear directly on the connection between context and information acquisition by virtue of the fact that information acquisition is an important part of the process of persuasion (though not all informationwill be persuasive once it is acquired). Indeed, the propositions outlined above find further support in the work of Bartels (1993), who noted that exposure to the media during the presidential campaigns appears to have the greatest impact "when prior opinions are weak, most notably for 'new' candidates or issues" (p. 275). In addition, Campbell et al. (1992) and Holbrook (1996) used similar logic to explain why the party holding the first convention (the challenging party) almost always enjoys a larger postconvention bump than the party holding the second convention. LEARNING AND POLITICAL ON DEBATES RESEARCH The clearest evidence of learning during presidential campaigns comes from studies of primaryelections, where it has been shown that voters learn a great deal about the candidates as they are exposed to campaign information (Bartels, 1988; Brady and Johnston, 1987; Popkin, 1991). But primary elections represent situations in which one might expect campaign informationto be most important to voters and, hence, in which learning is most likely to take place: They usually involve several candidates about whom voters have very little information. General elections pose a more imposing test for theories of political learning, since one candidate is usually the incumbent president or vice president and the other has usually come through a contested primary season. Given that people are likely to have more information about the candidates at the beginning of the general election campaign (postprimaries), one might not expect to find as much learning taking place as is found in primaryelections. However, one of the earliest studies of campaign dynamics found that exposure to the campaign via the mass media was directly linked to the level of

DEBATES PRESIDENTIAL LEARNING FROM POLITICAL

71

information people held about the candidates (Berelson et al., 1954). This finding was buttressed by Patterson'sexhaustive analysis of the impact of the media on the 1976 campaign, although the impact was found to vary somewhat by medium of exposure (Patterson, 1980). Presidential debates represent one of the most stringent tests for the effect of campaigns on political learning, because they are held relatively late in the campaign. Nevertheless, debates are still one of the most visible forms of campaign activity and should be expected to generate useful information for the electorate. Indeed there is some evidence from previous research to support the idea that debates perform an important teaching function. A number of early studies focused on the impact of the 1976 debates. Chaffee and Dennis (1979) found that, if nothing else, debate viewers at least say they learned something from the debates. Chaffee (1978) also found that the debates appeared to increase the ability of Wisconsin voters to answer questions about the candidates and their issue positions. Miller and MacKuen, using a national sample of voters, confirm this in their conclusion that "the 1976 debates produced a better informed electorate than would have existed if the debates had not been held" (1979, p. 292). This finding is buttressed by the work of Bishop, Oldendick, and Tuchfarber (1978), who concluded in their study of Cincinnati area respondents that exposure to the 1976 debates increased the level of issue awareness. Similarly, Becker, Sobowale, Cobbey, and Eyal (1978) found that the debates increased the level of understanding of the candidates and issues among a sample of voters from upstate New York. Sears and Chaffee (1979) provided a comprehensive review of the research on the 1976 debates and concluded that the debates were successful at communicating candidate issue positions. One additional finding from their review that is particularly relevant to this analysis is that voters appeared to have learned more from the first debate than from the subsequent debates. Lanoue and Schrott suggested that this "primacy"effect is probably due to the fact that the uninformed are most likely to encounter new information from the first debate, and that the subsequent debates are likely to repeat the themes of the first debate (1991, p. 110). This explanation,of course, fits very well with the expectations of this analysis. More recent work also supports the learning function of debates. Lemert (1993) found that the 1988 debates produced gains in voters' knowledge of issues in the campaign, but that these gains were not equally felt-in general, the debates increased the "knowledgegap"between high and low information voters. Drew and Weaver (1991), using surveys of voters in Indiana, concluded that people who watched the 1988 debates had more knowledge about the candidates' issue positions than those who did not watch the debates, but that exposure to the 1992 debates had no discernible impact on knowledge of

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candidate issue positions (Weaver and Drew, 1995). Lanoue (1991), using a student sample, found that although the second debate of 1988 had no persuasive impact, it did increase the level of information held by viewers, especially in the short term. Lanoue (1992) also found that low-informationvoters made greatest use of the information generated by the 1980 Carter/Reagan debate. In addition, Lenart's (1994) experimental study of the 1988 debates found evidence of learning in response to media coverage and, to a lesser extent, interpersonal communications about the debates. There is, then, a considerable body of research indicating an important learning function for presidential debates. But there is still much to be gained from the structure and approach of this study. First, this analysis focuses on the impact of fifteen debates across six different election years, thus providing a more general picture of debates than has previously been offered. Second, this study emphasizes an aspect of political learning that has heretofore been relatively unexplored: the impact of the context (timing and level of previously held information) in which the information is provided. Focusing on several debates across several years, involving several different candidates enhances the ability to consider the impact of context. Based on the existing literature, as well as the earlier discussion of the value of information, this analysis tests the following propositions: (a) presidential debates increase the level of information voters have about presidential candidates; (b) debates held relatively early in the fall campaign result in greater information gains than those held later in the campaign; and (c) debates are more likely to increase the amount of informationvoters have about the lesser-known candidates than about better-known candidates. INFORMATION MEASURINGCANDIDATE The dependent variable in this analysisis the amount of candidate information held by the general public, as articulated through open-ended candidate evaluation questions asked in the biennial National Election Study (NES). Although close-ended factual and issue position questions are frequently used in studies of voter knowledge and have been used to study informationacquisition during campaigns (Brady and Johnston, 1987), open-ended questions offer a number of advantages for this study. First, as useful as close-ended questions are for many purposes, it is difficult for the NES (or anybody else) to anticipate which issues are likely to be important in the campaign, and especially difficult to anticipate which issues will be discussed during the debates. As a consequence, close-ended questions may or may not be related to the content of the debates. Second, although there is some over-time consistency in the close-ended questions used by the National Election Study (NES), the format of the open-ended questions is identical from year to year,

POLITICAL LEARNING FROM PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

73

making it easier to create measures of candidate informationthat are comparable over time. Finally, open-ended questions allow the respondent to define what he or she sees as relevant pieces of candidate information.For instance, it is very likely that voters are just as interested in, and campaignsprovide just as much information about, many candidate characteristicsother than issue positions (affability, integrity, honesty, leadership, etc). Indeed, Miller and MacKuen (1979, p. 47), using essentially the same measure of information used here, found that while the 1976 debates increased the amount of issuebased information voters had about the candidates, they had an even greater impact on levels of partisan and personality-based information. Using openended candidate evaluation questions allows the respondents to articulate those aspects of the candidates that they find most relevant to their vote choice, whether issue based or not. The specific items used to measure candidate informationare derived from the candidate likes and dislikes questions from the NES preelection surveys.' The text of these questions is: Now I'd like to ask you about the good and bad points about the major candidates for president. Is there anything in particularabout <candidate name> that might make you want to vote for him? If respondents answer in the affirmative, they are then probed further and allowed to list up to five reasons why they might want to vote for the candidate. Then they are given an opportunity to list up to five reasons why they might want to vote against the same candidate. In total, these questions allow respondents to articulate up to ten reasons why they would either vote for or against a candidate. The specific measure used here is the total number of articulations,positive and negative, about the candidates provided by the respondent. For a single candidate, this variable can range in value from 0 (nothing to say about the candidate) to 10 (ten aspects of the candidate were mentioned). Although this may not be a perfect measure of candidate information, it clearly captures the amount of information respondents are able to access and articulate when making judgements about the candidates. This measure of candidate information has a rich research tradition and has been used to measure the structure of political information (Lau, 1986, 1995; DeSart, 1995), as well as levels of political sophistication (Smith, 1989; Zaller, 1989; but see also Rahn et al., 1994). THEIMPACT DEBATES CANDIDATEINFORMATION OF ON In order to measure the influence of debates on candidate information,it is necessary to compare information held prior to the debates with information

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held following the debates. Fortunately, the design of the NES lends itself quite well to this type of analysis: During presidential election years, there is both a preelection and a postelection component to the survey, with the preelection survey going into the field in early September and continuing until just before election day. Because the focus here is on learning during the campaign, all of the items used in the analysis are taken from the preelection wave of the survey. Since respondents are asked the candidate likes/dislikes questions in the preelection wave, it is possible to compare the level of information of those interviewed before the debates with that of those interviewed following the debates. If debates produce an increase in the amount of candidate information held by the public, the postdebate respondents should hold more information than the predebate respondents, all else held equal. To capture the impact of debates on political learning, debate dummy variables were created and scored 0 for those interviewed prior to a presidential debate, and 1 for those interviewed after the debate. A positive coefficient for this variable would indicate that levels of information are higher after the debate than before.2 Of course there are a number of other factors that might contribute to the amount of candidate information held by both pre- and postdebate respondents. First, since the ability to articulate reasons for supporting or opposing a candidate can also be considered a measure of political sophistication (Smith, 1989), it is necessary to control for factors typically associated with political sophistication. To this end, a number of control variables are included in the model: number of years of education (Education), interest in the campaign (Interest), the interviewer'sestimate of the respondent'slevel of intelligence (Intelligence), a dichotomous variable for race (White), and a dichotomous variable for gender (Female). These variables all have a long tradition of demonstrated salience in studies of political knowledge and sophistication (Bennett, 1988, 1989; Luskin, 1990; Smith, 1989). In addition, one could argue that the ability to articulatecandidate likes and dislikes could be driven by personality;that is, some people are much chattier than others and will provide more responses to any kind of open-ended question, simply due to magniloquence. In an effort to control for this influence, a variable measuring the length of the interview in minutes (Verbosity) is included in the model (see Appendix for a complete description of how the variables are coded and their anticipated relationship with the dependent variable). Levels of Information Figure 1 illustrates the amount of candidate information held by the public during the fall campaigns from 1976 to 1992.3A number of findings jump out from this figure. First, the typical respondent does not hold much informa-

POLITICAL FROM LEARNING PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

75

*4-

11
1976
I

II
1980 1984
Incumbent *

I
1992 1996

1988
Challenger

ThirdParty

in FIG. 1. Candidate information presidential elections,1976-1996. tion about the candidates. When given an opportunity to express up to ten reasons for voting for or against each of the candidatos, the average respondent was unable to list more than three reasons and frequently listed fewer. In addition, in most years respondents had more information about some candidates than about others. In general, this pattern fits the expectations listed earlier: The public holds more information about incumbent candidates than about challengers. This is clearly the case in 1980, 1984, 1992, and 1996 but less so the case in 1976 and 1988, when the public held roughly equal levels of information about the candidates. This pattern is remarkablysimilar to the pattern of candidate uncertainty uncovered by Alvarez and supports his conclusion that "the candidate from the party challenging an incumbent always has greater uncertainty associated with their policy stands" (Alvarez, 1997, p. 163). It is also quite clear from Figure 1 that voters have much less information about third-party candidates than about their major party opponents. While it is important to acknowledge that voters hold relatively little information about presidential candidates, what is more important for this analysis is that respondents hold predictably different levels of information about different candidates. According to the expectations discussed earlier, this asymmetry of information is expected to influence the amount of information acquisition that takes place. Specifically, debates should be more useful for providing information about lesser-known candidates than about betterknown candidates.

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Determinants of Candidate

Information

The first part of the analysis of the impact of campaigns on political learning is presented in Table 1. The dependent variable in the model is the level of information (total number of candidate comments) held by respondents about the major party candidates running in a given year. Although they are included in later analyses, comments about John Anderson and Ross Perot are not included in this part of the analysis.4The 1992 analysis also includes only variables measuring the impact of the first and third debates, and excludes the second debate. Because the three debates took place within an eight-day period, there was a high level of collinearity among the three debate variables, with the second one being the most collinear (tolerance = .21). Therefore, it was decided that two debate variables would suffice.5

TABLE 1. The Impact of Debates on Information Acquisition During Presidential Campaigns 1976 b (S.E.) Constant 1st Debate 2nd Debate 3rd Debate
Intelligence

1980 b (S.E.) 2.980 (.76) -.03 (.16) .51? (.23)

-.70*

1984 b (S.E.) 4.11* (.66) .19 (.16) .18 (.19)

-.96*

1988 b (S.E.) 4.59* (.76) .56* (.18) .34** (.18)

-.84*

1992 b (S.E.) 2.51* (.67) .22 (.17) -(.22) -.28

(.20) -.86*

1996 b (S.E.) 1.12* (.83) .41* (.21) -.18

-.83*

2.920 (.65) .45* (.18) .40* (.14) .08

(.09) -.72

Education
Interest

(.09) .17* (.02)

-.47?

(.12) .25* (.03)

-.48*

(.10) .27* (.03)

-.59*

(.11) .24* (.03)

-.73

(.10) .26* (.03)

- .69?

(.12) .28* (.03)

-.54?

Verbosity White
Female

(.04) .04* (.003) .37* (.18)

-.39*

(.05) .03* (.004) .50* (.22)

-.26?*

(.05) .03* (.003) .32 (.20)

-.44*

(.05) .02* (.004) .83* (.21)

-.70*

(.05) .04* (.003) .57* (.18)

.11

(.06) .04* (.004) .85* (.22)

.10

N R2

(.12) 1975 .30

(.14) 1433 .33

(.13) 2056 .33

(.15) 1650 .33

(.14) 2192 .33

(.16) 1643 .28

mentionsin reis Note:The dependentvariable the total numberof majorpartycandidate questions. sponseto the likes/dislikes ??p ?p < .05 (two-tailed); < .10 (two-tailed).

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The results in Table 1 offer some signs, albeit mixed, of information gains in the wake of presidential debates. First, five out of the thirteen debate coefficients are significant (p < .05) and in the anticipated direction, and one coefficient is significant if a less stringent standard (p < .10) is applied. But the debates are more useful in some years than in others: The first two debates of 1976 were significantly related to candidate information;the second debate of 1980 (the first one with the two major party candidates) had a significant effect; neither of the debates in 1984 had an impact on learning; both debates in 1988 increased information;neither debate had an impact in 1992; and the first debate had an impact in 1996. A closer examination of these results lends support to the "primacy" argument made earlier in this paper: that early debates are more important to learning than are later debates. With the exception of 1980 and 1984, the first debate in each year was either the only debate to demonstrate a significant influence on learning or had a larger coefficient than the subsequent debates. The exceptions do not really detract from the general pattern: In 1984 neither debate was significant, and in 1980 the second debate was the only one involving both Carter and Reagan (recall that the first debate was between Anderson and Reagan) and represented the first chance voters had to compare the two major party candidates. These results, then, support the hypothesis that the early debates represent the best opportunityfor voters to acquire information about the candidates. This may indicate that by the time the second and third debates roll around later in the campaign, voters have less use for the information, either because they have heard it all before (perhaps in the first debate) or they have decided how to vote and are closed off to new information.6 The candidate-by-candidateanalysis in Table 2 allows for a further examination of the timing hypothesis, as well as an examination of the impact of relative levels of candidate information on the degree of information acquisition following debates. The dependent variable is still the total number of comments respondents are able to make about specific candidates when asked for their likes and dislikes. The pattern of results in Table 2 buttresses the findings from Table 1 concerning the timing of debates. When the analysis is broken down by candidate, there is still a strong tendency for the first debate to have the greatest impact on learning: Nine of fifteen (60%) first debate coefficients are significant and in the anticipated direction, whereas only five of the seventeen (29%) coefficients for the subsequent debates support the learning hypothesis. Again, the implication is that timing is an important determinant of mass political learning. A potential problem with the findings regarding timing is that the significant first debate coefficients could be picking up a general learning effect early in the campaign, as anticipated in the earlier discussion, and the less

TABLE 2. The Impact of Debates on the Acquisition of Candidate-Specific Information Dur 1976-1996
1976 Ford Constant 1st Debate 2nd Debate 3rd Debate Intelligence Education Interest Verbosity White Female N R2 1.61' (.38) .20?* (.11) .290 (.08) .04 (.05) -.38? (.05) .08* (.01) -.24* (.02) .02* (.002) .23" (.11) -.250 (.07) 2048 .23 1980 1984 Bush 1.92* (.44) .23* (.10) .12 (.10)
-

1988 Dukakis 2.73* (.42) .32* (.1) .24* (.10) -.41 (.06) .110 (.02) -.39* (.03) .01* (.003) .19 (.12) -.43* (.09) 1690 .27 Bush 1.570 (.40) .06 ((.11) -.16 (.12) -.47* (.06) .12? (.02) -.35* (.03) .02* (.002)
.410

Carter Carter Reagan Anderson Reagan Mondale 1.30? (.37) .21? (.10) .13 (.08) .05 (.05) -.34* (.05) .090 (.01) -.24* (.02) .02* (.002) .14 (.11) -.15? (.07) 2030 .24 1.54? 1.49' (.43) (.45) .01 -.03 (.09) (.10) .24?* .29* (.14) (.14)
-

.38 (.42) .190 (.09) -.02 (.13) -.32*

.33* (.12) .01 (.09) .10 (.12)

-

2.13' (.37) .190 (.09) .07 (.11)

-

-.29? (07(.07) .12? (.02) -.240 (.03) .02* (.002) .12 (.13) -.10 (.08) 1509 .22

-.39? ( .07) .14 (.02) -.25* (.03) .01* (.002) .37* (.13) -.15?* .08) 1455 .25

-.49' -.46 ( ( .06) (.06) .06) .110 .16? .10* (.02) (.02) (.01) -.190 -.27? -.310 (.03) (.03) (.03) .02* .010 .010 (.002) (.002) (.002) .003 .380 .33* (.12) (.11) (.12) - .490 -.16? -.23? (.08) (.06) (.07) 2103 1317 2146 .27 .25 .22

-.43 07) .12 (.02)

-.340

(.03) .01* (.003) .64? (.12) -.26? (.09) 1693 .26

(.11) .002 (.02) 2237 .27

Note: The top entries represent the unstandardizedregression coefficients, and the parenthetical entries rep coefficients. The Perot equation is based on fewer respondents because the NES did not ask respondents for re Perot until after Perot entered the race on the first of October. ?p < .05 (two-tailed);*"p < .10 (two-tailed).

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significant second and third debate coefficients could reflect the fact that people are generally less likely to acquire new information late in the campaign. Two important pieces of evidence tend to negate this argument, however. First, if it were the case that the debate coefficients were simply measuring the passage of time, it would be expected that they would be significant even for those candidates who did not participate in certain debates (Carter, first debate, 1980; Anderson, second debate, 1980; Perot, both debates in 1996). Yet, there is no evidence in Table 2 of information gains for candidates who did not participate in the debates. Second, when variables measuring date of interview were added to the analysis in Table 2, none were significant, though most of the debate coefficients retained their significance.7 Still, due to the limitations inherent in these data, one must recognize the possibility that the debate-induced patterns of learning found here could reflect other sources of learning during the campaign. Turning to the question of how the relative level of candidate information influences information acquisition, the results in Table 2 once again provide support for the information context hypothesis. A close examination of the coefficients reveals that in every year the debates produced much more significant amounts of information for the lesser-known candidate(s) than for the better-know candidate. In 1976, knowledge about Ford was increased by the first and second debates, but knowledge about Carter was only influenced by the first debate. In 1980, the Reagan/Anderson debate only increased knowledge about Anderson, and the Carter/Reagan debate increased information about both participants, although the coefficient for Reagan is somewhat larger and reaches a higher level of significance. The first debate of 1984 only affected knowledge of Mondale, and the second debate had no impact. In 1988, the first debate increased knowledge about both candidates, although the effect was stronger for Dukakis, and the second debate only influenced knowledge about Dukakis. Although there is no statisticallysignificant difference between the overall levels of information about the two candidates in 1988 (see Figure 1), it might be assumed that the debates represented a better opportunity to learn about Dukakis because Bush, as vice president, had more noncampaign avenues of providing information. The 1992 debates did nothing to increase information about Bush, whereas the first debate affected the level of information about both Clinton and Perot, and the third debate only influenced the level of Perot information. Finally, the first debate of 1996 increased the level of information about Dole, but neither of the debates had an impact on levels of information about Clinton, the best known of the candidates, or Perot, who did not participate in the debates. Overall, the pattern of relationships is quite striking: Only three of the thirteen (27%) coefficients for the better-known candidates (this treats Bush as the better-known candidate in 1988) were significant and in the anticipated

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direction, whereas eleven of nineteen (58%) coefficients for the lesser-known candidates were positive and significant. This pattern strongly suggests that information generated by debates is more likely to fill gaps in the electorate's knowledge of the lesser-known candidate than the better-known candidate. This does not necessarily mean that the lesser-knowncandidate benefits politically from the debates, since the new information could just as likely be negative information as positive. Instead, these findings indicate that people are more likely to learn about lesser-known candidates from the debates than about already familiarcandidates.

The Impact of Exposure Thus far the emphasis has been on the impact of debates on information acquisition for the entire electorate, regardless of individual differences in debate exposure. Although it is probably safe to assume some minimal amount of general exposure to major events such as debates, not all voters will avail themselves of the opportunity to be exposed to the debates either directly or indirectly. The question, then, is to what degree does exposure influence learning from presidential debates? Surely, events such as debates, which generate informationand sound bites well beyond the night they occur, can be useful sources of information even for those who do not watch them. However, while voters can certainly pick up information about the debate via the mass media (Lanoue and Schrott 1991; Lemert et al., 1991; Lenart, 1994) and from interpersonalcommunications (Lenart, 1994), it should be expected that debates are more useful sources of information to those who actually watch them than to those who pick up the information secondhand. Unfortunately, the NES has not always asked respondents whether they watched the debates; and when they have asked, they have not always used the same question format. Nonetheless, the 1976, 1984, and 1996 election studies do afford an opportunity to examine the impact of debate viewing on information acquisition. In 1976, respondents were asked how many of the debates they watched (some respondents listed more debates than actually took place), and in 1984 and 1996 respondents were asked specifically which of the debates they had watched. From these variables it is possible to assess the general level of debate exposure in 1976 and exposure to specific debates in 1984 and 1996. To gauge the impact of debate exposure, new dummy variables were created and coded 0 for those who did not watch the debate, or who were interviewed prior to the debate, and 1 for those who did watch the debate and who were interviewed after the debate.8These variables,then, identify debate viewers who were interviewed following the debates. The coefficients for these variables reveal the amount of postdebate learning (if any)

DEBATES FROM PRESIDENTIAL POLITICAL LEARNING

81

that accrues to debate viewers above and beyond the amount that accrues to all respondents. The analysis of the impact of debate viewing on political learning is presented in Table 3. These results provide some support for the argument that debates are more useful sources of information to those who actuallywatched them than to those who did not; however, they also support the argument that those who did not watch the debate were still able to garer useful information from them. In 1976, the first debate only had an impact on those who reported watching the debate, and the second debate influenced all respondents regardless of level of exposure; in 1984, the first debate had an impact on levels of candidate information but only for those who reported having
TABLE 3. The Impact of Direct Exposure on Information Acquisition Following the 1976, 1984, and 1996 Debates 1976 Constant
1st Debate

1984 3.99* (.68)

-.13

1996 1.18* (.83)

.60*

2.84* (.73)
-.19

2nd Debate 3rd Debate Watched * 1st Debate

Watched * 2nd Debate

(.38) .61*
(.29)

(.21) .05
(.29)

(.25) -.60*
(-.28) -

.13
(.14)

.95* (.42)
-.23

.64* (.22)
.15

-.23 (.25)
.86?

Watched * 3rd Debate

Intelligence

(.33) -.03
(.12) -.70? (.10)

(.33)
-.97? (.10)

(.33)
-.85? (.13)

Education
Interest

.17* (.03)
-.44*

.27* (.03)
- .56*

.29* (.04)
- .52*

Verbosity White
Female

(.05) .04? (.003) .29 (.22)

-.41?

(.05) .03* (.003) .30 (.20)

-.47*

(.06) .04* (.004) .84* (.23)

.12

N R2
< op < .05; **??p .10.

(.13) 1663 .30

(.14) 1936 .33

(.16) 1539 .28

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watched the debate; and in 1996, the first debate had an impact on all respondents, but the second debate had a positive impact only on those who reported watching it.9 Again, these findings suggest that debates generate the largest information gains for those who actually watched them, but can also be an important source of information for those whose exposure is only indirect. These findings also bear directly on an issue raised earlier concerning the difficulty of separating debate-induced learning from the general effect of the campaign on learning. One way of interpreting the interaction terms in Table 3 is that they represent the impact of direct exposure to the debates while controlling for indirect exposure and all other sources of campaign news in the postdebate period. Although not definitive, this does provide more direct evidence in support of the proposition that debates have an important independent influence on information acquisition during presidential campaigns. Watching the debates is the most direct way of deriving information from them, but there are many other indirect avenues of information gathering. In particular,media coverage of the debate and political discussions seem to be likely paths of indirect exposure to the debates. It might be expected that the politically aware and interested would be the most likely to expose themselves to these indirect sources of information, just as they are more likely to take advantage of direct exposure. As a result, one might expect to find a relationship between general access to political information and the likelihood of acquiring new information from debates. The data in Table 4 represent the impact of the debates (regression coefficients) on information acquisition during each of the six elections, broken down by level of political information, interest in the campaign, and partisanship, all of which can reasonably be expected to influence the degree to which people expose themselves to campaign information.'0In general, although it is not a strong monotonic pattern, there is some indication that those who are already politically engaged are the most likely to gain information from debates. There is a positive relationship between level of political knowledge and amount of information acquired from the debate, with the most knowledgeable being most strongly affected by the debates. A similar pattern is found when the sample is broken down according to partisanship, with partisans more strongly influenced by debates than are independents. The pattern for political interest is somewhat less clear, with those who said they were somewhat interested in the campaign being most strongly influenced by the debates. These results indicate that although the information-pooroccasionallybenefit from the debates, the general pattern is for the information-richto get even richer. This pattern is consistent with the general finding from the "knowledge gap" literature-that increases in the flow of information frequently increase the gap in the amount of informationheld by high- and low-

DEBATES PRESIDENTIAL FROM POLITICAL LEARNING TABLE 4. Access to Information and Information Acquisition Following Presidential Debates
Level of Political Information Interest in the Campaign Not Much Somewhat Very Much Partisanship

83

Debate 1976 First Second Third 1980 First Second 1984 First Second 1988 First Second 1992 First Third 1996 First Second Number significant and in the anticipated direction

Low

Average .39 .43** .19 .46 .00 .04 .34 .26 .82* .002 0.02 .06 .24

High .92* .52* .11 .01 .95 .13 .21 .81* .42 .37 -.35 .25 -.42

Independent .18 .58* .18 .65 .41 .31 -.29 .57** .08 .55* -.91' .54 -.34

Partisan

-.05 .21 -.03 .71*? .67 .27 .07 .19 .25 .10 -.19 1.05' -.23

-.49 .46 -.05 .50 .57 .17 .15 .37 .52** .35 -.70 1.07*0 -.60

.89* .24 .09 .52 .51 .37 .24 .60* .56* .10 -.29 .35 -.05

.44 .55* .17 -.32 .04 -.08 .01 .67* -.16 .28 -.10 -.08 -.08

.69* .30** .03 .14 .36 .10 .47** .52* .46* .05 .10 .34 -.17

Note: The level of political information is taken from the interviewer'sperception of the level of knowledge the respondent demonstrated about politics and public affairs (very high/fairlyhigh = high, average = average, fairly low/very low = low); campaign interest is taken in its original categories from the standard NES interest question; and partisanship is based on the standard NES party identification question (independents/leaners = independents, weak and strong partisans = partisans). *p < .05; *p < .10.

information people (Gaziano, 1983; Tichenor et al., 1970; Donohue et al., 1987)-as well as the specific finding that presidential debates can lead to a widening knowledge gap (Lemert, 1993).

CONCLUSIONS
The focus of this paper has been on the extent to which the electorate acquires information-or learns-from presidential campaigns. Relying on debates as the measurable campaign stimulus, the analysis produced a num-

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ber of important findings. First, major events such as debates do stimulate information acquisition among the mass public. Generally speaking, respondents interviewed after a debate were able to retrieve more information about the presidential candidates than those interviewed prior to the debate, all else held constant. This effect was not always present and it varied in terms of magnitude but, on balance, the evidence points to debates as an important source of candidate information during presidential campaigns." The second major conclusion of this analysis is that the context in which information is presented affects the degree to which it is acquired. The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that the most important debate, at least in terms of information acquisition, is the first debate. In virtually every instance, subsequent debates either had weaker or nonexistent effects. This pattern is best explained by the value of the information at the time it is encountered. The first debate is held at a time when voters have less information at their disposal and a larger share of voters are likely to be undecided. In addition, as Lanoue and Schrott (1991, p. 110) point out, much of the information presented in subsequent debates may also have been presented in the first debate. As a consequence, each piece of information provided in the first debate is likely to be of more value than informationprovided in the remaining debates. Another finding regarding context is that the impact of information depends upon the subject of the information. Following virtually every debate, respondents were more likely to have learned something about the lesserknown of the candidates than about the better-known candidate. The explanation for this pattern is similar to that given for the influence of debate timing on information acquisition: If information about one candidate is relatively scarce, each additional piece of information about that candidate is less likely to have been previously encountered and will be more useful than would an additional piece of information about better-known candidates. Once again, the value of information helps to determine whether it is acquired. Finally, those who are most directly exposed to political informationare the most likely to benefit from the information.This finding highlights the importance of political engagement and the problem inherent in efforts to get political information to the masses. Simply put, even for high-visibilityevents such as debates, the learning benefits that accrue go most directly to those who are already politically engaged. Uninformed and disengaged voters-those who could potentially benefit the most from campaign information-are not sufficiently exposed to the political messages and therefore do not gain as much information from the campaign as do the politically engaged.

POLITICAL LEARNING FROM PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

85

OF APPENDIX: DESCRIPTION INDEPENDENT VARIABLES AND ANTICIPATED TO RELATIONSHIPSCANDIDATE INFORMATION

Dichotomous variables coded 0 for all respondents interviewed prior to the debate and 1 for all respondents interviewed following the debate (positive relationship to candidate information). Intelligence Interviewer'sassessment of respondent's apparent intelligence: 1 = very high, 2 = above average, 3 = average, 4 = below average, 5 = very low (negative relationship to candidate information). Education What is the highest grade of school or year of college you have completed? Range: 0 to 17 (Positive relationship to candidate information). Interest Some people don't pay much attention to political campaigns. How about you? Would you say that you have been (1) very much interested, (3) somewhat interested, or (5) not much interested in the political campaigns so far this year (negative relationship to candidate information). Verbosity Length of interview in minutes (positive relationship to candidate information). White A dichotomous variable coded 0 for all nonwhite respondents and 1 for all white respondents (positive relationship to candidate information). Female A dichotomous variable score of 1 for all male respondents and 2 for all female respondents (negative relationship to candidate information). Debates

NOTES
1. The studiesused here are the 1976, 1980 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996 American National for for tively).These datawere madeavailable the Inter-university Consortium Political by and SocialResearch the University Michigan. at of 2. Clearly,the ideal strategy would be to use a panel design so that a comparison could be madeof the pre-andpostdebate levelof information This amongthe samerespondents. type of designwouldallowfor greaterconfidencein making statements about"changes" the in level of information such at followinga debate. Unfortunately, data sets are not available, least not thatare basedon representative measures. Nevsamplesand thatuse appropriate ertheless,the strategyused here does allow one to makestatementsaboutthe impactof debateson the level of information by the publicat large:specifically those interheld that viewedafterthe debatehold more/less/same information thoseinterviewed than priorto the are debate,even when strictcontrolvariables takeninto account.Statements such as this the held implythatdebates"change" level of information by the respondents. 3. The levels of candidate information presentedin Figure 1 are based on responsesto the likes/dislikes of the questionsduringSeptember the electionyears.In 1992,however, data forPerotweretakenfromOctober sincethe NES did not askaboutPerotuntilhe reentered the raceon October1. 4. Anderson comments excluded are fromthe 1980analysis in because,whilehe did participate the firstdebatewith Reagan, was not a participant the seconddebate,whichinvolved he in both Carter Reagan. 1992,although and In Perotparticipated all threedebates,the NES in did not askthe candidate likes/dislikes the questionaboutRossPerotuntilhe reentered race
Election Studies (ICPSR studies #7381, #7763, #8298, #9196, #6067, and #6896 respec-

86

HOLBROOK on the first of October. Therefore, including Perot in the informationvariable would cut the sample size almost in half. Perot is also excluded from the 1996 analysisin order to maintain the major party emphasis. Subsequent analyses will analyze all candidates separately. When a variable for the second debate is included in the model, the results for the other two debates are only slightly affected, but the coefficient for the second debate is marginally significant and negative, which is a completely counterintuitive result. One potential threat to the validity of this finding is that respondents who were reluctant or difficult to contact were, by necessity, interviewed later in the campaign. If these respondents were also generally less sophisticated than others, the findings of less information acquisition later in the campaign may simply reflect a different (less informed) composition of the sample late in the campaign. To test for this possibility, I also controlled for the number of callbacks that were required to secure an interview with the respondents (generally speaking, respondents who required more callbacks were interviewed later in the campaign than were other respondents). The results were encouraging:The variable measuring number of callbacks was not significant and in the anticipatingdirection in any of the years. In one case, there was a significant, though counterintuitive finding, indicating that hard-tocontact respondents had more information than other respondents. To check for this possibility, I reestimated all of the equations in Table 2 and added a control for number of days prior to the election that the respondent was interviewed. Because the relationship between time of interview and amount of candidate information is expected to be curvilinearand indicate diminishing returns over time, the reciprocal (1/x) and log of this variable were tested separately.Neither of the days-before-the-election variableswere significant in any of the equations. However, the debate coefficients generally retained their significance (although some of them were diminished due to collinearitywith the days-before-theelection variables). Determining who did and did not watch the debates is an easy matter for 1984 and 1996 because the NES asked respondents about each of the debates separately.Therefore, those who said they did not watch the debate are assigned a score of 0 and those who report having watched the debate are assigned a score of 1. In 1976, the task is more difficult, since the NES only asked respondents how many debates they watched. The decision rule used is that those respondents who reported not watching the debates or only having watched one debate were assigned a value of 0 and all others were assigned a value of 1. While this coding makes the 1976 variable less precise, it is unavoidable due to the nature of the original variable. The negative coefficient for the second debate variable for all respondents at first appears to make no sense at all. However, when coupled with the positive coefficient for those who watched the debate, it indicates a substantial gap in levels of information between viewers and nonviewers following the debate. One might also argue that media usage and political discussion variables could be used in this analysis. The problem, however, is that the NES did not use a consistent set of media and discussion variables across the five election studies here, thus preventing comparable analysis of these variables. When the available media and discussion variables are used, the results are not very consistent. As mentioned earlier, this conclusion must be tempered somewhat with the recognition that with the exception of the analysis of direct exposure to the debates, and despite efforts to control for other sources of learning, it is still possible that some of the debate effects uncovered here are influenced by a more general learning process from the campaign.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

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