Engineering Election Debates With Subtle Cues

smolloy writes "A recent innovation in televised election debates is a continuous response measure (the 'worm') that allows viewers to track the response of a sample of undecided voters in real-time. A potential danger of presenting such data is that it may prevent people from making independent evaluations. Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of Bristol, report an experiment with 150 participants in which they manipulated the worm and superimposed it on a live broadcast of a UK election debate. The majority of viewers were unaware that the worm had been manipulated, and yet the researchers were able to influence their perception of who won the debate, their choice of preferred prime minister, and their voting intentions."

Comments

Debates are like NASCAR

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Political debates are pretty useless anyway.

At best all you get to learn is how good a debater each candidate is. The only reason to watch a debate is the same reason people really watch NASCAR races - for the occasional flameout like Jan Brewer in the Arizona debate but even that wasn't a fatal crash as she went on to win the election anyhow...

Only the final influencer counts

[petes_PoV]

I doubt that all the different influencers are cumulative. I have a sneaking suspicion that if people are indecisive (and receptive) enough to be influenced by a "worm" during a TV debate, that influence will only last up until the next influencer gets hold of them.

Unless one single party has the ability to pound away at the electorate, to the exclusion of all other parties and opinions then I doubt that anything except the final exhortation to "vote for me" that they see on the way to the polling station, will have any lasting effect. Elections are like athletics: it doesn't matter who's in the lead at any time, except right at the end.