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Ford Election Hypothesis

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It was not until 1976, when incumbent President Gerald Ford and Democratic Party’s candidate Jimmy Carter debated, that there was another live televised presidential debate. . Carter maintained a relatively large lead over Ford prior to the debate, but after Ford’s undisputed win, he gained ground on Carter. Ford was not as successful in the second debate. . His now famous blunder about Eastern Europe, “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration” (CITATION) cost him some voters, especially given the fact that he would not retract that statement for more than a week after the second debate. The election cycle of 1976 also saw the first televised vice presidential debate between Walter …show more content…

The first hypothesis is that “[p]residential debate watching increases knowledge of candidate’s issue stand” (Benoit et el). The first hypothesis simply shows that viewers who watch the debate will leave the debate knowing more about where each candidate stands on certain issues. The significant mean effect size of .275 means that this effect is significant. The second hypothesis is “[p]residential debate watching increases issue salience” (Benoit et al). In this case issue salience is used to mean the number of issues viewers use to evaluate each candidate. The significant mean is lower than the first hypothesis, being only .196. This means while watching the televised presidential does increase issue salience, it is not a significant increase. Benoit el al also brings up the possibility that it could be that voters who watch the debate simply already have more issue salience than voters who do not watch the debates. The third hypothesis is “[p]residential debate watching affects preference for one candidate’s issue positions over another’s” (Benoit et al). This hypothesis at a glance could be considered a good thing because voters will have choose between the candidates but as shown by in the coming …show more content…

The research concludes that the format does not have a huge impact on viewers. Mutz and Reeves have done research “that examined the effects of camera framing in televised debate coverage and found that contentiousness intensified by a tight close-up shot tended to spur cynicism in viewers”(Cho). Their research indicates that the mode of which things are presented can in fact influence viewers. Cho researched the effects of split screen coverage on viewers in regards to visual cues, candidate contrast, and message complexity. Cho’s research concluded that “[t]his pattern of character-based judgment spurred by televised images of candidates is likely to become even stronger when debates are presented on split-screen because more non-verbal cues about candidate personality are available than with single-screen coverage” (Cho). Cho’s hypothesis is that viewers who watched split screen coverage were more likely to draw from a candidate’s character perception in their assessment of the debated issue than viewers who watched the debate on single screen

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