Cueing and Backlash Effects of Party Press Releases on Public Opinion in Germany

• In Event: Cross-national Perspectives on Party Press Releases

Abstract

Empirical studies report only weak and inconsistent evidence that citizens react to the policy statements in parties’ election manifestos. We extend this research to analyze citizens’ reactions to party press releases. We code over 30,000 press releases that German parties published since 2005, and we analyze how citizens adjusted their policy views in response to parties’ stated positions. Our analyses of German Internet Panel Survey data produces strong evidence of positive cueing effects whereby citizens take policy cues from their preferred party, and of backlash effects whereby citizens shift their positions away from the stated positions of parties they dislike. Our findings substantiate that party press releases matter, and have implications for party strategies and for mass-elite policy linkages.

Authors

• James Adams, University of California, Davis

• Dominic Duval, Université du Québec à Montréal

• Alexandra Feddersen, University of Fribourg, Switzerland