Televised debates: perceptions and opinions during the Spanish 2008 case*.
Dr. Óscar G. Luengo
(Universidad de Granada, Spain)
Abstract:
The study of televised debates is fascinating, difficult, and multifaceted, especially
when talking about the fact that they present a variety of effects. Despite large body of
research, little is known about either the ways in which viewers react to different kinds
of statements during televised debates or the degree to which these short-term reactions
influence post-debate opinions. This paper tries to contribute to the discussion around
the importance of electoral debates. We select the second televised debate in the 2008
Spanish national election between José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy
(March 3, 2008) as the main reference in order to confirm audience reactions to the
debate and the consolidation of voters’ behaviour afterwards. Methodologically, we use
a combined strategy (RTR-measurement and content analysis) in order to verify how
the TV debates are perceived by the electorate and how they affect voting behaviour.
Introduction:
During the last decades, the expansion of traditional mass media and the emergence of
new media have deeply changed the political process. As a consequence of this
irruption of mass media in the political realm, the way of portraying electoral
campaigns and candidates seems to be transformed significantly. Among the trends
identified it can be underlined the increasing personalization, the increasing negativism,
a tendency toward more interpretive coverage, a deauthentication of the portrayal of
candidates, and more horse-race coverage (Reinemann and Wilke, 2007: 93).
One of the formats in which those dynamics have been recreated is the televised
debates. It has become a key feature of election campaigns in many countries around the
world. For the last four decades, the spreading of this format has become part of the
well-known trend of modernization and personalization of campaigns1. We can follow
Plasser and Plasser (2002) in order to illustrate this trend: If at the end of the 1970s,
televised debates were common in only 10 countries, by the end of the 1990s, that is,
around 20 years later, they became a frequent part of general elections in at least 35
nations. Probably, within the last years this trend has became even deeper since is very
likely that the number of them has increased, given that there are countries where
televised debates have been held for the first time (e.g. Kyrgyzstan, Taiwan, Ukraine).
Televised debates show particular characteristics that make this way of political
communication very interesting to research. First of all, unlike regular campaign media
coverage, they provide voters with the chance to directly listen to the candidates and
learn about their issues stands and personalities without the filter of the media’s news
selection. This could be considered as an exception to the concept of mediated politics.
*
I would like to express my gratitude to the Centro de Análisis y Documentación Política y Electoral de
Andalucía (CADPEA), who financed this project, and also to Marcus Maurer who kindly took part in this
research.
1
Also known as the process of “Americanization”.
Secondly, televised debates today reach normally a larger audience, including
undecided and uninterested voters. Still, in absolute numbers the candidates can reach
more undecided and uninterested voters by the debates than by any other means of
campaign communication. Thirdly, they generate more media coverage and stimulate
more discussion among citizens than any other single campaign event. Consequently,
the study of televised debates is as fascinating as difficult and multifaceted, especially
when talking about the fact that they present a variety of effects.
Traditionally, the research on political communication in general, and on televised
debates in particular, has been “monopolized” by North American scholars. This is the
reason why main conclusions are based on Mancini´s and Hallin´s liberal models
(2004). However, due to differences in political systems, electoral procedures, the role
of the candidates, political cultures, and the setting of the debates, findings from one
country should not be uncritically transferred to other countries. Hence, research on
other nations, as for example the Mediterranean cases (polarized pluralist model), is
quite necessary in order to have a complete x-ray of the topic.
Despite a large body of research, little is known about neither the ways in which
viewers react to different kinds of statements during televised debates, nor about the
degree to which these short-term reactions influence post-debate opinions.
This paper tries to contribute to the discussion around the importance of electoral
debates. We selected the second televised debate in the 2008 Spanish national election
between Zapatero and Rajoy (3rd/March/2008) as the main reference in order to confirm
audience reactions to the debate and the consolidation of voters’ behaviour afterwards.
Televised debates and the Spanish case.
In the recent Spanish political history, we can only find televised debates between main
candidates in two different general election campaigns: two debates in the 1993 general
elections between Felipe González (PSOE, Social democrat) and José María Aznar (PP,
Conservative), and other two last 2008 general elections between José Luís Rodríguez
Zapatero (PSOE) and Mariano Rajoy (PP). During last years, we could find different
debates between “second” candidates (e.g. between Pedro Solves (PSOE) and Manuel
Pizarro (PP), the principal figures for economic affairs within the socialist and
conservative parties in 2008 general elections) and also between main candidates but
during regional political campaigns: e.g. the debate between Andalusian leaders in 2008
regional elections, Manuel Chaves (PSOE), Javier Arenas (PP), Diego Valderas (IU)
and Julián Álvarez (CA).
During last general election campaign in 2008, two televised debates were held between
the current prime minister, the social democrat Zapatero, and the conservative Rajoy.
These campaign events took place two and one week prior to the election (February 28
and March 3). They were broadcasted by most of the channels2 during prime time (at
22:00 hrs.) and were hosted by one prestigious journalist each (Manuel del Campo
Vidal and Olga Viza, respectively). It was the second debate, the one held March the
3rd, the one under analysis for this research.
2
The debates were shot by a neutral agent (Spanish Academy for Art and Cinematographic Sciences),
who opened the sight to other channels.
As it has already mentioned, televised debates have different potential political effects
among the public, some of them quite interconnected. First of all, it can be said that the
first effect has to do with the perceptions about the debate winner. Generally, those
verdicts can be supposed to be affected by political predispositions, expectations and the
perception of the debate itself. Secondly, there is also a clear effect on the electorate
opinion about the candidates (e.g. levels of popularity). Thirdly, the audiences can also
get knowledge from the discussions about different political issues that are taken place
during the debates, which lead us to talk about impacts at the cognitive level. Numerous
studies have shown that viewers learn from televised debates about the candidates’ issue
stands (Maurer & Reinemann, 2006). Those effects are mostly the result of verbal
elements of the debate. Lastly, we can point out the influence of televised debates on
perception of the winner the election. Consequently, it is out of discussion the potential
effects of televised debates on electoral behaviour.
If we compare the distinct formats of debates, we can point out that debates differ in
their length, in the participation of journalists and public, in the number of the
candidates involved, and their rules. In the case under study, both debates lasted around
90 minutes (including an almost 5 minutes break), there was no public attending, the
moderator had a very little role (just introducing the issues for discussion and
controlling the time), the candidates participating in the debate were the leaders of the
two main political parties, those with real possibilities to became the prime minister, the
social democrat Zapatero and the conservative Rajoy. Finally, it can be said that the
rules were really strict (time, sequence of interventions, location of candidates, etc.) as a
consequence of the hard negotiations previous to the debates. In sum, formats were
decisively important.
In many countries, televised debates in general elections generate the largest audience
of all single campaign events. Often, they have the largest audience of all TV events in
an election year. Just to give some references, 20 million people watched the only
debate before the German 2005 national election (about one fourth of the German
population). In Italy, 16 million people watched the debate in the 2006 general election
campaign (about 25% of the population). And in the U.S., about 63 million citizens
watched the first debate in 2004 (about 21% of the population). In the Spanish case, in
2008 around 13 million people watched the first debate, although the second was
followed by 11 million, which is meaning almost 30% of the population. This trend is
coherent with the “general rule”, since is quite clear that if more than one debate is
celebrated, the first one usually attracts the largest audience. Generally, the magnitude
of the audience seems to be determined by several variable: the volume of pre-debate
media coverage, voters’ perceptions of how tight the race is, by the number of
undecided voters, and by the amount of TV stations broadcasting the event.
Methodology.
As it has been already mentioned, the study of televised debates is very challenging.
Traditionally, the analysis of televised debates was centred on the effects of the debates
right after the debate, ignoring all those aspects that are taking place during them. Postdebate surveys of viewers and large portions of post-debate media coverage have been
focused on the same question: who won the debate? (Lemert, Wanta & Lee, 1999). In
fact, studies have shown that only the perceived winner can benefit from a debate in
terms of electoral support (Shaw, 1999). For that reason, it is important to research how
viewers arrive at their immediate post-debate verdicts. Generally, those verdicts can be
supposed to be affected by political predispositions, expectations and the perception of
the debate itself (Yawn & Betty, 2002; Reinemann & Maurer, 2005).
Based on some research performed by some German colleagues3, we tried to analyze
the debates at the disaggregate level. We could measure immediate reactions of viewers
during a debate and the most impressive statements or decisive moments could be
identified from candidate interventions, that is, we have distinguished micro-level
effects showing how debates produce their effects and what types of arguments,
statements, rhetorical means and visual message elements resonate with the audience.
Regarding the research techniques, we employed a combined strategy. By one hand, we
used a Real Time Response device (RTR) that allowed us to check audience reactions to
the debate on an every second basis. We also used a panel survey, since we wanted to
control the audience not only social and demographic profile, but also its political
attitudes, ideological predisposition, media consumption behaviour, etc. Finally, we
content analysed the media during the campaign, in order to verify what was the real
impact of the media exposure from the debate to the Election Day in the electorate, and
we also content analysed the transcription of the debates.
When designing the methodological details, we were thinking about the possibility to
introduce an experimental approach, in order to identify potential differences between
people watching the debates and people that didn’t. In that sense, some studies have
already compared candidate images, attitudes or voting intentions of viewers and nonviewers in the days after the debates, to detect debate effects. The differences between
these two groups are interpreted as debate effects. This approach, however, does not
take into account that even non-viewers are indirectly affected by interpersonal
communication and post-debate media coverage. Finally, we decided not to include a
control group.
The sample was selected following quotas (sex, age, education, ideological
predisposition). Since not all the proportions were obtained by the process of sampling,
we weighted the sample before starting the statistical procedures of analysis. The details
of the sample before weighting, are shown in the Table 1.
3
As already mentioned, there are only a few studies that combine measures of political predispositions,
expectations and the perception of the debate itself to investigate their relative impact on post-debate
verdicts. Most of them were carried out by Marcus Maurer and Carsten Reinemann.
Table 1. Sample.
Figure 1. Research design.
People taking part on the study were instructed to select on their hand-held RTR-device
if they experienced neither a particularly positive nor negative reaction towards the two
contestants (See Figure 2). The center-position of the scale “4” indicates neutral
perceptions. Positions below “4” were to be chosen if the subjects had a positive
impression of the social democratic candidate or a negative impression of the
conservative candidate. Positions above “4” were to indicate a positive impression of
the conservative or a negative impression of the social democratic candidate.
Figure 2. RTR-device directions.
Effects of political predispositions on immediate debate perceptions can be measured by
real-time-response systems (RTR). By using them, immediate reactions of viewers can
be measured during a debate and the most impressive statements or decisive moments
can be identified.
Finally, regarding the hypothesis and research questions, we are going to pay attention
to various dimensions of the debate and its effects. First of all, we want to know which
were the variables more influential when determining the verdicts of the public. Second,
we are interested in the way candidates delivered their messages, which were the most
efficient type of statements when seducing the audience. Third, we want to verify the
way media exposure during the following days after the debate can influence first
perceptions during the debate.
As it has been already shown, those aspects can lead to different first hypotheses and
research questions. They could be formulated as follows:
H1. Depending on the social and demographic characteristics of the audience, as well as
its political predispositions, we can find different attitudes towards candidates
performance during the debates:
RQ1. What are the most influential characteristics of the audience in order to
confirm their perceptions during the debate?
H2. Candidates can deliver distinct discourse strategies in order to seduce the electorate,
and some of them are more efficient in order to gain the electorate support:
RQ2. Which are the most successful statements during the debate?
H3. Media exposure and interpersonal communication are variables quite important
when modifying the first impressions of debate viewers into opinions during the
following days of this campaign event.
RQ3. How significant were the media exposure and interpersonal contacts in
order to crystallise the first verdicts into opinions?
Effects of televised debates in Spain; a first empirical approach.
The results of the RTR measures are quite interesting. In the study, we used a panel
survey, that was taken right before, right after and 3 or 4 days after the debate. With this
strategy we wanted to measure social, political and demographic dimensions of the
audience. The potential political predispositions considered more significant, given the
empirical evidence accumulated during the last decades (Reinemann & Maurer, 2005),
were the expectations of the winner before the debate and the ideological predisposition
of the audience. The first was included in the questionnaire in the following terms:
“Today the second televised debate between José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano
Rajoy will be held. Who do you think will win the debate, who will make a better
impression?”. The second variable was measured asking “If the forthcoming electoral
day is tomorrow, who would you vote for?”.
The first empirical approach to the data shows a very remarkable pattern. At the
aggregate level, we run Pearson correlation coefficients between those two cited
dimensions and the verdict of the winner. Interesting enough in both cases we found
statistically significant coefficients: the presumptions of the winner showed a
coefficient of .742** and the partisan identification .701**. This first finding
demonstrates that the way participants react to candidate interventions was significantly
biased depending on how they thought was going to win the debate, and who they were
planning to vote for. We can easily observe this last trend in graphical terms when
having a look to Figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1 shows the mean of the evolution of the evaluation of the participants during the
whole debate. Number 4 at the horizontal axis indicates the neutral position; beyond this
point (4-7) shows a better estimation of the conservatives; above 4 (1-4) denotes an
advantage for the social democrats. Since the graph illustrates a mean, that includes
both potential voters. If we discriminate between those planning to vote one candidate
or the other (Figure 2), we can see the difference very clear: those participants that were
planning to vote for the conservatives, showed a clear predisposition to evaluate more
positively Rajoy, as well as those voters that recognise the intention to vote for the
social democrats, showed an obvious tendency to grade more positively Zapatero. In
sum, what can be seen in Figure 2 is that the supporters of a candidate generally
perceive him more positive than the other candidate.
Figure 1. Immediate perceptions of the debate.
To summarise, if RQ1 was focused on the most influential characteristics of the
audience in order to confirm their perceptions during the debate, it can be state that not
only the partisan predisposition but also the expectations raised by the audience, were
the most influential variables in order to shape immediate perceptions of participants.
This first conclusion is coherent with the results of previous research.
Figure 2. Impact of political predispositions on immediate perceptions of the debate.
The second research question had to do with the most successful statements during the
debate. If we observe the Figure 2, we can identify the most efficient speeches, since we
have the reaction of the participants once the sample was segmented between those
supporters of both candidates. Therefore, we can detect the peaks where something
interesting was said, that obtained the positive agreed reaction of the people. In figure 3
some of those moments have been recognized. In a first attempt to categorise those
successful statements it can be said that these unanimous support reactions had to do
with statements that emphasised the so-called commonplaces, and also those that
accentuated emotions. By commonplaces we can understand statements that are rather
abstract, ambiguous, or vague, formulating general goals in such a way that nearly
everybody can agree (Reinemann & Marcus, 2005: 784). Zapatero employed those
statements more often within his interventions: e.g. when he was calling the attention to
his personal support to social policies, new technologies, against gender violence, or
rural development. Rajoy commonplaces were related to issues like taxes reduction and
fight against illegal immigration. Figure 3 gives a good example of this kind of
candidate rhetoric and its effects. On the other hand, first data also illustrates that
attacks and factual evidence tend to polarize supporters and opponents of the candidates
(e.g. confrontation around the ETA terrorist and its different ways of solution).
Figure 3. Identification of the most successful statements.
Unanimous
Support
Unanimous
support
Finally, regarding the third research question we were interested in how significant were
media exposure and interpersonal contacts in order to crystallise the first verdicts into
opinions. These details can be easily verified checking out the differences between the
second and the third questionnaires. The Figure 4 shows the distribution of frequencies
related to the question “how do you think won the debate you have watched?”
Figure 4. Participants’ verdicts as to the winner of the debate.
These data are quite comparable and equivalent to those published that concrete night
by different TV channels4. If we analyse the dynamics that happened during the
following 3 o 4 days we can assumed that not only the information the participants were
exposed to, whether on television or newspaper, and the verdict depicted by this
information. We can say that most of the main Spanish news broadcasts verdicts
pointed Zapatero out as the winner of the debate. The same trend remained true for the
main Spanish newspapers front pages. The Figure 5 illustrates that event really
obviously. Although we don’t have yet statistical evidence, a first conclusion could be
presumed from the data. It can be corroborated that, assuming that the media verdicts
stated that Zapatero was the winner, media exposure modify some of the first
impressions into consolidated opinions afterwards in that sense. None of the 60% of
participants that considered Zapatero as the winner right after the debate changed their
opinions in the following days. In the meantime, half of those that considered that the
result was tight altered their opinion in favour of Zapatero after 4 or 5 days. Finally,
regarding those believing that Rajoy was the winner right after the debate (31%), only
21% remained the same after some days, 7% changed their minds and decided that the
result was tight, but 3% modified completely their verdict in favour of Zapatero during
the subsequent days.
Figure 5. Changes in participants’ verdicts during the next days.
Given the results, we have details enough to deduce that media exposure favoured
Zapatero during the next days of the debate, since the main media discourse considered
Zapatero as the winner. This also contributed to consider that interpersonal
communication also was aligned in the same direction, playing a intensifier role when
interacting with the media.
Discussion and first conclusions.
Following Reinemann and Maurer (2005), reviewing many studies conducted on
televised debates shows that televised debates do have considerable individual-level
effects. Whether or not debates can be regarded the decisive factors for the outcome of
an election, however, depends upon at least three factors. First, the strategic situation
4
For example, to those offfered by Channel 4 (La Cuatro) during the next hour of the debate that day: see
in http://www.cuatro.com/microsites/elecciones-2008/index_opiniones2_prueba.html.
before the debates. If one camp or party is way ahead in the polls, even a defeat of its
candidate in a debate may not be enough to cause a fundamental change of voting
intentions. Therefore, the winner of a debate will not necessarily win the election,
although he will probably gain additional votes. Whether this gain is enough to win,
depends upon pre-debate distance between candidates and/or parties. Second,
differences in debate performances. If candidates are perceived as more or less even in
their performances, fewer voters will change their minds. If one candidate is perceived
as the clear winner, voters will be more likely to move into one direction. Third, postdebate media-coverage. If the media are more or less consonant in their verdicts about
debate performance, the winner will clearly benefit from his performance in terms of
votes. If there is, however, a diversity of verdicts and evaluations of the candidates in
the media, individual-level changes of candidates’ images and voting intentions might
cancel each other out on the aggregate level.
At least in the United States presidential campaign, debates tend to reinforce voting
intentions of those already committed more than they change them. In that specific case,
the number of partisans changing their voting intentions because of the debates has been
estimated to about one to four percent (Jamieson & Adasiewicz, 2000: 26). In other
countries, much stronger effects have been reported for certain debates, e.g. in Australia
(Clark, 2000) or Mexico (Lawson, 2002). But even when the number of converted party
identifiers remains relatively small, this does not mean that debate effects are minimal.
In many western democracies, the number of party identifiers has been declining and
effects on independent and undecided voters seem to be much stronger. In addition, a
small percentage of converts still might decide an election in close races. Our data are
quite adequate to check out this dimension in the Spanish case.
As it can be have already seen in this paper, generally speaking, verdicts are supposed
to be affected by political predispositions, expectations and the perception of the debate
itself (H1). Those dynamics were measured by questionnaires and real-time-response
systems (RTR). During the debate candidates delivered distinct discourse strategies in
order to seduce the electorate, and those more efficient in order to gain the electorate
support were emotive and commonplaces (H2). Post-debate coverage influences
perceptions of a debate, even among those that watched it themselves. Although these
effects usually are smaller than effects of the debates themselves they still are
considerable (H3). The media coverage was consonant, so effects on individual viewers
pointed into the same direction. If media tone differs, various effects in different
directions are likely to be found. As stated by Reinemann and Maurer (2005), after a
televised debate, journalists, experts, and spin-doctors give their interpretations of the
debate, sometimes relying on instant polls. This improvised analysis on TV has been
shown to be especially powerful in changing debate viewer’s own impressions.
This research is product of a first approximation to the data, but is quite coherent to the
general belief coming from previous analysis.
The contribution of this paper to this field has to do with the collection of data that
allow international comparisons. Most of our knowledge on televised debates comes
from the North American context. Internationally comparative studies could enhance
our understanding of the impact of contextual factors like political culture, or the
political and the media system, since Spain is a relatively young democracy, with the
main features of the polarized pluralist model, and a significantly complicated multiparty systems.
References.
Benoit, W. L., Hansen, G. J., & Verser, R. M. (2003). A meta-analysis of the effects of
viewing U.S. presidential debates. Communication Monographs, 70, 335-50.
Benoit, W. L., Pier, P.M., Brazeal, L. M., McHale, J. R., Klyukovski, A., & Airne, D.
(2002): The primary decision: A functional analysis of debates in presidential
primaries. Westport: Praeger.
Benoit, W. L., Stein, K. A., & Hansen, G. J. (2004). Newspaper coverage of presidential
debates. Argumentation & Advocacy, 41, 17-27.
Blais, A., & Boyer, M. M. (1996). Assessing the impact of televised debates: The case
of the 1988 Canadian election. British Journal of Political Science, 26, 143-64.
Carlin, D. B., Howard, C., Stanfield, S., & Reynolds, L. (1991). The effects of
presidential debate formats on clash: A comparative analysis. Argumentation &
Advocacy, 27, 126-36.
Clark, H. (2000): Watching the debates: A guide for viewers. In S. Coleman (ed.),
Televised election debates. International perspectives (pp. 157-177). New York:
MacMillan.
Coleman, S. (ed.) (2000). Televised election debates. International perspectives. New
York: MacMillan.
Druckman, J. N. (2003). The power of television images: The first Kennedy-Nixon
debate revisited. Journal of Politics, 65, 559-71.
Gordon, A., & Miller, J. L. (2004). Values and persuasion during the first Bush-Gore
presidential debate. Political Communication, 21, 71-92.
Holme, R. (2000). Third parties and television debates. In S. Coleman (ed.), Televised
election debates. International perspectives (pp. 92-103). New York: MacMillan.
Jamieson, K. H., & Adasiewicz, C. (2000). What can voters learn from election debates.
In S. Coleman (ed.), Televised election debates. International perspectives (pp. 2542). New York: MacMillan.
Joslyn, R. A. (1990). Election campaigns as occasions for civic education. In D. L.
Swanson & D. Nimmo (eds.), New directions in political communication (pp. 86119). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Kaid, L. L., McKinney, M. S., & Tedesco, J. C. (2000): Civic dialogue in the 1996
presidential campaign: Candidates, media, and public voices. Creskill, NJ:
Hampton Press.
Kendall, K. (1997). Presidential debates through media eyes. American Behavioral
Scientist, 40, 1193-207.
Kenski, K., & Stroud, N. J. (2005). Who watches presidential debates? A comparative
analysis of presidential debate viewing in 2000 and 2004. American Behavioral
Scientist, 49, 213-28.
Lanoue, D. J., & Schrott, P. R. (1991). The joint press conference. The history, impact,
and prospects of American presidential debates. Westport.
Lawson, C. (2003). Mexico’s great debates: The televised candidate encounters of 2000
and their electoral consequences. In J. I. Domínguez & C. Lawson (eds.), Mexico’s
pivotal democratic election: Candidates, voters and the presidential campaign of
2000 (pp. 211-42). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Lemert, J. B., Wanta, W., & Lee, T.(1999). Winning by staying ahead: 1996 debate
performance verdicts. In: L. L. Kaid & D. G. Bystrom (eds.), The electronic
election: Perspectives on the 1996 campaign communication (pp. 179-89).
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Levasseur, D., & Dean, K. W. (1996). The use of evidence in presidential debates: A
study of evidence levels and types from 1960 to 1988. Argumentation and Advocacy,
32, 129-42.
McKinney, M. S., & Carlin, D. B. (2004). Political campaign debates. In L. L. Kaid
(ed.), Handbook of political communication research (pp. 203-34). Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
McKinney, M. S. (2005). Engaging citizens through presidential debates: Does the
format matter? In: M. McKinney, L. L. Kaid, D. G. Bystrom, & D. B. Carlin (eds.),
Communicating politics. Engaging the public in democratic life (pp. 209-21). New
York: Lang.
Mancini, P & Hallin, D. (2004). Comparing Media Systems: Three Models Of Media
And Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maurer, M., & Reinemann, C. (2006). Learning vs. Knowing. Effects of misinformation
in televised debates. Communication Research, 33, 489-506.
Morello, J. T. (1992). The “look” and language of clash: Visual structuring of argument
in the 1988 Bush-Dukakis debates. Southern Communication Journal, 57, 205-18.
Norton, M. I., & Goethals, G. R. (2004): Spin (and pitch) doctors: Campaign strategies
in televised debates. Political Behavior, 26, 227-48.
Pfau, M. (2002). The subtle nature of presidential debate influence. Argumentation &
Advocacy, 38, 251-61.
Plasser, F., & Plasser, G. (2002). Global political campaigning. A worldwide analysis of
campaign professionals and their practices. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Racine Group (2002). White paper on televised political campaign debates.
Argumentation & Advocacy, 38, 199-218.
Reinemann, C., & Maurer, M. (2005). Unifying or polarizing. Short-term effects and
post-debate consequences of different rhetorical strategies in televised debates.
Journal of Communication, 55, 775-94.
Reinemann, C., & Wilke, J. (2007). It's the debates, stupid! How the introduction of
televised debates changed the portrayal of chancellor candidates in the German press,
1949-2005. Press/Politics, 12, 92-111.
Scheufele, D. A., Kim, E., & Brossard, D. (2007). My friend's enemy: How split-screen
debate coverage influences evaluation of Presidential debates. Communication
Research, 34, 3-24.
Shaw, D. R. (1999). A study of presidential campaign effects from 1952 to 1992.
Journal of Politics, 61, 387-422.
Smith, C., & Voth, B. (2002). The role of humour in political argument: How “strategy”
and “lockboxes” changed a political campaign. Argumentation and Advocacy, 39,
110-29.
Tiemens, R. K. (1978). Television’s portrayal of the 1976 presidential debates: An
analysis of visual content. Communication Monographs, 45, 362-70.
Trent, J. S., & Friedenberg, R. V. (2000). Debates in political campaigns. In J. S. Trent
& R. V. Friedenberg (eds.), Political campaign communication. Principles and
practices, 4th ed. (pp. 249-91). Westport: Praeger.
Waldman, P., & Jamieson, K. H. (2003). Rhetorical convergence and issue knowledge
in the 2000 presidential election. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 33, 145-63.
Yawn, M., & Beatty, B. (2000). Debate-induced opinion change. What matters?
American Politics Quarterly, 28, 270-285.
Zhu, J.-H., Milavsky, J. R., & Biswas, R. (1994). Do televised debates affect image
perception more than issue knowledge? Human Communication Research, 20, 302333.