Public opinion toward teachers and other public sector workers is an important factor in Ontario provincial politics. This article uses public opinion data to measure, and identify the correlates of, resentment and admiration of these groups, and to identify the relationship between these attitudes and support for political parties in Ontario.…

In this article, Amy N. Farley, Matthew N. Gaertner, and Michele S. Moses examine the use of ballot initiatives as a particularly attractive form of direct democracy for opponents of affirmative action in higher education. Building on previous scholarship, the authors question whether anti-affirmative ballot initiatives validly reflect voters'…

Attempts to uncover clues concerning the ways people of different orientations responded to incoming information during the 1976 Presidential campaign. (MH)

A study investigated whether reliance on television rather than on newspapers affected the way people made voting decisions. Specifically, it focused on whether television reliance was associated with greater candidate image evaluation and newspaper reliance with greater issue importance in the prediction of voter preferences. Telephone interviews…

Comments upon selected literature and data sources that are illustrative of such interdisciplinary areas as political psychology, propaganda, election and voting behavior, public opinion polls, and election statistics. (Author)

Reports on a study of people's perceptions of the way in which their voting choices, and those of others, were influenced by media editorial endorsements of candidates. (GW)

A study examined the evaluative structures employed by voters in making decisions about political contenders, specifically as a function of the level of the election involved and the incumbent-challenger status of the candidates. Data were obtained by questionnaires administered within two weeks prior to the 1984 general election to 550…

To examine the congruency between voters' personal agendas and the perceived agendas of candidates, 160 college students interviewed repeatedly during the 1980 presidential campaign were asked to rate both the importance they assigned and the importance they felt each candidate assigned to eight major campaign issues. The influence of the election…

Patterned after a 1976 study, a study examined voters' decision making during the 1980 campaign for the presidency of the United States. Data from a survey of 183 registered voters indicated that partisan voters were likely to be precommitted to a candidate choice and thus relatively immune to mass mediated campaign effects. However, those voters…

This paper reports part of the results from a three-stage panel study of the Fall 1976 presidential campaigns; 1,927 interviews were conducted in all, 594 occurring in the week prior to the election. Results indicated that voters did not change their voting intentions significantly during the fall campaigns; that they did change the certainty with…

Presidential candidates in the United States tend to seek consensus rather than to try to discover new answers to problems and to convince voters that they should be elected to implement those answers. Reporters in the mass media emphasize objectivity and fairness in their reporting. This emphasis produces an intense interest in the…

Over the last 20 years, a successful election campaign has come to depend in large part on successful use of the broadcast media. As a result, media experts are part of most politicians' teams, and their strategies help determine the results of the election. Usually, themes or "images" are more important than issues. The techniques of mass…

This 63-page annotated bibliography contains available materials in the area of political communication, a relatively new field of political science. Political communication includes facets of the election process and interaction between political parties and the voter. A variety of materials dating from 1960 to 1972 include books, pamphlets,…

Two waves of telephone interviews with a sample of 141 voters were used in a study of political communication effects during the 1974 congressional election in the Illinois 24th Congressional District. Seven variables specified by the combined-effects model were derived from the interviews and factor analyzed. Two factors were found and…

Examines how mass media exposure to election campaigns influences beliefs about the closeness of the election race, as well as how these beliefs influence the degree of involvement in the election. Data from the 1968 and 1972 presidential elections are analyzed and indicate that no such relationships exist. (JMF)