Do televised presidential debates help inform voters?
- 1 January 1993
- journal article
- other
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media
- Vol. 37 (1) , 83-94
- https://doi.org/10.1080/08838159309364205
Abstract
Most researchers agree that presidential debates inform voters, but they disagree about whether debates only serve to widen a knowledge gap. The alternative perspective is that the holding of televised debates serves to inform a wider spectrum of voters than not holding them would. Re‐analysis of pre‐debate and post‐debate surveys from the fall 1988 campaign shows: 1) knowledge gap indices gained predictive power once debates began, but 2) even after controlling for knowledge gap indices, presidential debate exposure still predicted knowledge gains.Keywords
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