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

The Onion

[benjamindees]

Once again The Onion was there first.

Reasonable Choices.

[RyanFenton]

This, along with the idea of an Overton window, and the classic approach of simply buying all the media sources available are reminders that, although we are each beings capable of making rational choices - what we see as reasonable is VERY often decided by the range of views we are exposed to.

Watch only right/leftwing media, and someone on the other extreme will seem extremely unreasonable compared to the side you're used to - even when you agree with them.

Live life only aware of your own nation, and all other nations will seem unreasonable and absurd, speaking their strange languages, with their scary history of violence - but your own nation's history of violence will seem a unique point of pride.

The "worm" mentioned in this article is just an instant poll - and conflated polls have always been a tool of shaping a nation's "reasonable discourse." You don't even have to lie - When you get to select the questions in a poll, or the audience for the instant poll - you get to shape the greek chorus chanting of what is authority and reasonableness to the populace.

That's not to say the whole system is all a sham, as would be tempting - but it is all flawed in most every direction (as it always was, and was expected to be historically). Skepticism and exposure to outside views are key to growing your mind to a state less vulnerable to such things. The Internet is actually helping here with the next generations - but open even-handed skepticism as a subject still needs a LOT more promotion in free societies, along with awareness of what works in other nations.

We need more bologna detection kits working out there!

Ryan Fenton

Re:Reasonable Choices.

[ewe2]

In every debate using the worm here (Oz), at least one media organization always accuses the others of manipulating theirs, regardless of the result. So if you weren't already influenced then you had to ignore the deliberate media muddling of the issues. On top of the normal deliberate media muddling of course. But it doesn't stop commentators twittering them as a spectator sport anyway. This may be why we had a record 1.6% deliberate donkey vote in our last federal election.

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...

Re:Debates are like NASCAR

[GodfatherofSoul]

Debates are only useless to people who follow politics. For that person with only a casual interest, they're very revealing snapshots. I learned this after talking to a friend after the last election. For those of us who are interested in politics beyond the headlines, we have a bad habit of forgetting how uninformed most of the public is. And, I wouldn't use anything from Arizona as a model for the rest of the nation!

The problems start when we stop having real debates and the "safe" crap like the Bush-Kerry debates.

The same people back both sides

[Colin Smith]

That's not to say the whole system is all a sham

It is a sham. The choice of leaders is a pretence. All of them are backed by the same groups and are obligated to those groups, not the electorate. Take a look at the enacted policies and you will be completely unable to tell the parties apart.

Re:The same people back both sides

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the famous "b... b... but both sides are the same and equally bad."

You're right, there's no difference between them except on minor policies regarding the environment, the economy, national security, worker's rights and a few other bits of fluff. Last election, one party nominated "Harvard graduate & policy wonk" and the other nominated "Senility & nice tits", but there's no difference. One party supports increased fuel efficiency standards and research, the other is outright attempting to destroy the EPA and OSHA, but there's no difference. One party got us involved in 2 land wars in Asia (One of them based on lies) with no good way out and now has no policy on national security other than chest beating and "anything to make the black man look bad, even if it means delaying a nuclear inspection treaty with Russia," the other is trying to get us out of those land wars and is busy not starting one in Libya. One party thinks the answer to our economic problems is more deregulation, cutting taxes, and is anti-worker to the point of taking down murals from the Department of Labor for being pro-labor, to say nothing of the attempted complete no-bid sellout of Wisconsin.

But you're right, they're both equally as bad.

People who, like you, throw up their hands in despair because no group is perfect are the best ally the neo-fascists who've taken over the Republican party could ask for. The more people they can disgust and keep away from the polls, the fewer useful idiots they need to vote for them and therefore the more extreme/overt they can get.

Re:The same people back both sides

[SuricouRaven]

Depends how you define 'bad.' There are a lot of people who would be one-issue voters, if not for both the parties not caring about it. Take, for example, copyright reform - this being Slashdot, a lot of people here believe that some form of weakening of copyright laws would be in order to preserve freedom of innovation and because the cost of enforcement is unacceptable. But what can they do? The Republican party is in favor of even stronger copyright law, and the Democratic party is in favor of... exactly the same. They are both beholden to corporate interests, because that is where the money is - and it doesn't matter how good your policies are, you arn't going to get far in politics without the money to run a campaign. In the last presidential election, the candidates between them spent nearly three billion dollars. They differ only in exactly which corporations they serve.

The problem isn't that the parties are the same - they do differ substantially, as you describe. The problem is that they are both essentially corrupt, just in different manners, because that is the only way to compete in the political arena. Winning elections takes money, and you get money by courting the rich donors and implying that you'll do something to help them if they give you enough to get in power.

Re:The same people back both sides

[damienl451]

I don't have a dog in this fight (not a US citizen), but let me guess, you're a Democrat? I think reactions like yours are one of the main reasons why compromise has become impossible in the US. How can you make a deal when you think that the other party is a bunch of morons and "neo-fascists" (yeah, right, don't you feel a little ridiculous?). If they're so bad then they can't possibly have a point, their voters are morons and we shouldn't pay any attention to them regardless of the fact that they control half of Congress.

First, everyone should take issue with the fact that a Harvard-man and a policy wonk are *necessarily* the best suited to run a country. Do you realize how condescending that sounds? "Oh my, this Sarah Palin only has a B.S. from the University of Idaho... How awful!". Isn't the Democratic Party supposed to be the party of the underdog?

In terms of credentials, Bush/Cheney should have been great. Bush: Yale & Harvard, Cheney: M.A. and some doctoral coursework... All we need to do to see that the "best and the brightest" mentality does not lead to great achievements is look at the 60s with Kennedy & Johnson and the Vietnam War. The "best and the brightest" (read the book) got the US into an unwinnable war.

I think we also have a different definition of what actions one needs to take not to start a war. By my definition, launching 100+ missiles into a sovereign country and destroying their airforce IS making war on this country. Attacking a foreign country is a very strange way of trying to keep a nation at peace. Or maybe the Japanese were also engaging in "kinetic military action" at Pearl Harbour? Have you been reading Orwell lately?

Strangely enough, it seems to ring a bell... Didn't the previous administration also use euphemisms to hide the dirty reality of what they were doing? They didn't torture people, they used "enhanced interrogation". Likewise, the present administration is not waging war on Libya, they are engaging in "kinetic military action".

Didn't you hear about the hawks in the Obama administration advocating military action in Libya? Do you believe that only the GOP has that kind of people?

Anyway, you seem to focus solely on the rhethoric. I say that actions speak louder than words. There seems to be a lot of continuity between Bush & Obama. When the GOP is in power, all they do is talk about deregulation, etc. while voting for NCLB. Talk about small government while voting for the PATRIOT Act. Talk about cutting the deficit while making sure that Medicare and all the popular programs don't get cut, etc.

Same thing for the Dems. They badmouth deregulation a lot but, you know what, they supported most of it. Airline deregulation (mind you, this was a good thing)? Carter era, sponsored by a Dem. Repeal of Glass-Steagall? Clinton era, bipartisan vote.
And who promised to "end welfare as we know it" in his 1992 campaign?

Are the two parties the same? Of course not. But the policies they implement are reasonably similar. I'm not convinced that the US would be a very different place if the GOP had won the 2008 elections. Now with Libya, you can't even say that Obama will not engage in military action without the approval of Congress...

Re:What is this?

[Hognoxious]

I dunno, but everybody seems to believe in it so it must be true.

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.

Re:Likewise televised exit polls

[paper tape]

If there are only two choices, I don't disagree - but if there are three or more choices, and everyone is telling you the one you really want to vote for doesn't have a chance, then the logical thing to do is pick the least bad of the remainder. It is exactly that sort of manipulation that has given us more of the same, election after election.