CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Wilhelm, Samuel John |
|---|---|
| Title | Electoral Campaign Intensity and Policy Learning |
| Summary | This paper uses the National Annenberg Election Survey data from the 2004 US election to empirically test how campaign intensity modifies the relationship between political interest and policy learning. This research furthers our understanding on the effects of campaigns on policy learning, testing the conditions in which individuals demonstrate greater learning. The analysis utilises a two-step OLS regression to analyse whether advertising spending interacts with political interest to influence policy learning. It is theorised that campaign intensity conditions the relationship between political interest and policy learning and provide an explanation to why recent studies have observed a negative relationship between political interest and policy learning. Those less politically interested are expected to demonstrate stronger policy learning than those more politically interested when campaign intensity is high. This expectation is premised on the idea that, in the context of greater campaign intensity, the less politically interested become relatively more exposed to political information than the most politically interested. The findings corroborate recent work that illustrates a negative relationship between political interest and policy learning during campaigns even when reducing the role of ceiling effects. The expected interaction between campaign intensity and political interest on policy learning is, however, not supported by the data. From this it is discerned that campaign spending seems to have limited influence on policy learning through political interest, and also that campaigns do not produce much policy learning generally |
| Supervisor | Angelova, Mariyana |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/wilhelm_samuel-john.pdf |
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