Image or Issue-Orientation: A Question of Mode of Information Processing in Televised Debates?

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session and Reception
  In Interactive Paper Session: Political Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Scholars assume that televised debates, with their focus on political candidates rather than political issues, foster image-centered, personalized processing of political information. We test this assumption by systematically manipulating the modality (audio vs. audiovisual) of the 2013 German televised debate in a live-experiment. 110 participants either watched or listened to the debate prior to the 2013 national elections. As predicted, viewers of the debate rely on candidates’ personality characteristics while listeners of the debate focus on issue agreement when evaluating the candidates’ debate performance. However, this effect is conditional upon existing levels of political interest, with highly interested subjects being less open to modality effects and basing their evaluation on issue-agreement independent of the experimental condition. We discuss these findings in the light of dual-process approaches in (political) media effects research.

Authors

• Lukas Otto, U of Koblenz-Landau

• Michaela Maier, DGPuk - Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Publizistik-und Kommunikationswissenschaft

• Isabella Glogger, University of Koblenz-Landau