TV debates small effect in voters, evidence from 61 elections in 9 OECD countries: Changes in individual vote choices mostly result from changes in beliefs on competing candidates

Le Pennec, Caroline, and Vincent Pons. "Vote Choice Formation and the Minimal Effects of TV Debates: Evidence from 61 Elections in 9 OECD Countries." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-031, September 2019. https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/vote-choice-formation-and-the-minimal-effects-of-tv-debates-evidence-from-61-elections-in-9-oecd-countries

Abstract: We use 200,000 observations from repeated survey data in 61 elections and 9 OECD countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choices and policy preferences in the electoral season and assess how TV debates contribute to this process. We find that the share of voters who state a pre-election vote intention corresponding to their final vote choice increases by 15 percentage points in the two months preceding the election. Changes in individual vote choices mostly result from changes in beliefs on competing candidates, and they generate aggregate shifts in predicted vote shares. Instead, policy preferences remain remarkably stable over time. We use an event study to estimate the impact of TV debates, campaigns’ most salient events, and find that they do not significantly affect either individual vote choice and preference formation nor aggregate vote shares. This suggests that information continuously received by voters exerts more influence on their behavior.

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These results suggest that even if voters sometimes seem relatively uninformed, their vote choices actually aggregate a lot of information, beyond just debates, and that other sources are more impactful. A possible interpretation is that voters discard candidates’ debate statements because they rationally expect them to be more biased than information coming from nonpartisan sources, or that they only pay attention to statements aligned with their existing beliefs. But existing evidence shows that some forms of partisan communication do persuade voters. An alternative interpretation is that the particular medium through which debates are broadcasted is the issue: it is difficult for candidates to change people’s minds, and this does not happen on TV or the radio. This interpretation is consistent with the fact that campaign advertisements diffused through these channels fail to affect individual vote choices (Spenkuch and Toniatti, 2018), differently from more personalized contacts such as phone calls, door-to-door visits, or townhall meetings (e.g., Arceneaux, 2007; Fujiwara and Wantchekon, 2013; Pons, 2018).

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Our results also have implications for the regulation of campaigns. Since the first presidential TV debate in the U.S., in 1960, there has been a continuous and ongoing effort to diffuse this innovation to countries which have not adopted it yet (see for instance the work done by the Commission on Presidential Debates or the National Democratic Institute), and to improve debates’ format and the fairness with which they treat all competitors, including third-party candidates, where they have become a tradition(e.g., McKinney and Carlin, 2004). Our results suggest that some of this energy may be better spent in studying and reforming campaign regulations to ensure that all campaigns have equal direct access to voters; and in monitoring the most personal and tailored forms of partisan communication, on the field and in social media, toimprovethequality of information available to voters and increase the chance that their final choice corresponds to their actual preferences. This may require granting administrative bodies responsible for organizing and supervising elections more resources, while better controlling those available to candidates.


Check also Testing popular news discourse on the “echo chamber” effect: Does political polarisation occur among those relying on social media as their primary politics news source? Nguyen, A. and Vu, H.T. First Monday, 24 (5), 6. Jun 4 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/10/testing-popular-news-discourse-on-echo.html

And Right-Wing Populism, Social Media and Echo Chambers in Western Democracies. Shelley Boulianne, Karolina Koc-Michalska, Bruce Bimber. New Media & Society, presented, in review. Sep 2019. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/10/echo-chambers-usa-overall-we-find-no.html