Message Perspectives
With the exception of inoculation (Banas & Rains, 2010), which has been systematically examined, there have been strikingly few tests of major persuasion theories in the political domain. Predictions from the elaboration likelihood model, neoassociation approaches, and even the theory of reasoned action have been inadequately explored in the political sphere. Thus, it is difficult to conduct meta-analyses of the political persuasion literature. Although we know a great deal about political cognition and affect, we know much less about how these processes translate to message strategies. It would be useful to derive communication effects hypotheses from differential conceptualizations of affect, encompassing affective priming, symbolic politics, and online processing models. Guided by the ELM, researchers should conduct a series of studies, using different methodologies, to determine whether peripheral cues exert a stronger impact under low than high political involvement, and the types of cues that are particularly impactful under low elaboration conditions.
Although the ELM is notoriously vague in spelling out the types of arguments that are effective under high involvement/ability conditions, it does predict that self-interested appeals should be maximally effective under high personal relevance, as the earlier example of the Obama voter in 2008 suggests but does not empirically document. More broadly, it would be useful to explore the impact of symbolic narratives, examining the way they can transport partisans and energize political imaginations in ways that the Tea Party seems to have done as of late. Framing research could benefit from microstudies that explicitly test message strategies derived from differential underlying processes (i.e., accessibility, belief importance, and belief change), as well as macroresearch that identifies the conditions under which elite, activist, and public frames exert the strongest impact on political outcomes.
Channel Factors
Research on the communication channel should flourish in coming years in view of volcanic changes in political technology. Social media sites like Facebook seemed to have played a key role in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts, galvanizing activists and producing seismic shifts in public attitudes (Preston, 2011). In a similar fashion, Obama’s use of social networking sites is widely believed to have mobilized and influenced waves of young political participants. Yet we lack knowledge of the processes by which this occurred. While researchers can’t easily study campaigns or revolutions in vivo, they can test hypotheses in experimental settings. Experiments could test predictions about web 2.0 political influence, with hypotheses exploring whether influence occurs through central processing, virtual opinion leaders and multiple step flows, presumed influence, social proof (Cialdini, 2001), or combinations thereof.
At the same time, research should probe channel effects associated with traditional political media formats. Guided by conceptualizations of digital rhetoric that emphasize anonymity, interactivity, as well as spatial characteristics (Gurak & Antonijevic, 2009), studies could probe whether negative advertising has different effects on the Internet than on television and how perceivers process leader expressive displays when conveyed on YouTube rather than television screens.
Receivers
There is no consensus on which individuals are most susceptible to political persuasion. Some scholars argue that voters least knowledgeable about politics are most influenced, while others maintain that the highly sophisticated are most susceptible because they can better comprehend political communications; still others contend it is those in the middle of the distribution who are most likely to change their attitudes in response to political messages (Hillygus, 2010). Like the search for the holy grail or the most persuadable types of people, this is a fool’s errand, given the complexity, situational influences, and difficulties in measuring political personality traits. The ELM reminds us that individuals on both ends of the elaboration likelihood continuum are susceptible to influence. Perhaps the most useful research strategy is to study political influence in situs, testing theoretical predictions in particular contexts, in this way accumulating a conceptually driven answer to these array of questions.
At the same time, the emphasis on the current yin and yang of political persuasion—deliberation and polarization—suggests possible direction for research. We need to better understand the processes by which deliberation produces more open-minded thinking, as well as the psychological processes underlying polarization. Studies should provide an in-depth examination of how and why individuals become psychologically entrenched in political positions, as well as ways to nudge them toward greater tolerance. While critics appropriately worry that polarization can produce cynicism, a more nuanced approach emphasizes that political polarization, with its focus on clear-cut issue positions, can promote deeper processing of political issues. Moderators of polarization effects, such as gender (with female voters sometimes engaged by civil, but not strident, attacks; see Brooks & Geer, 2009), are ripe for the exploring. Research in this tradition can clarify the functions and dysfunctions of political polarization. Empirical extensions to non-American contexts—an arena in which political communication scholarship is frequently devoid of guiding conceptualizations—would be a welcome addition to the literature.
Finally, on a more phenomenological note, it would be interesting to simply talk to American citizens and ask them how they feel about politics. One might learn unexpected things from talking to people, such as the issues they find politically meaningful—no doubt different from those covered in the mainstream media—as well as their conceptual explanations and emotional triggers. There is much that we know about how people construct the political world, as well as media effects on citizen constructions (Armoudian & Crigler, 2010). This literature should be instructive in revitalizing research programs exploring how individuals from different demographic and cultural groups interpret political events.
Normative and Empirical Issues
There remains no scholarly consensus on just what role political persuasion ought to play in contemporary democracy. Some theorists argue that communication should promote deliberative thought (Gastil, 2008). Others assert persuasion is less about deliberation than about offering candidates systematic opportunities to make their case. Some utilitarian philosophers would applaud the system, pointing to the benefits conferred by availability of communication technologies that reach hundreds of millions of citizens. Still others would lament the diminished sense of political community on which a thriving democracy depends (Sandel, 2009). Even if all agree that the system is designed to improve the political good, there exists no consensus on the meaning of “good.” Does good mean promoting civic harmony? Does it refer to negative messages, which allow for systemic criticism of incumbents’ records? Does it involve the discovery of truth and its wide diffusion to the electorate? And if it involves all these things, where does one strike the optimum balance?
The existence of different philosophical prescriptions is inevitable. It would be naive to expect consensus. But it would be useful to gain greater clarity on the normative assumptions that underlie explorations of “is” and “ought” questions. One frequently detects a tendency to accept, even reify, particular approaches. Deliberation and deliberative democracy are lionized. Habermas’ work (1987) is treated as gospel. It sometimes seems to be taken for granted that democratic outcomes will be advanced through thoughtful deliberation. Yet, as Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) pungently note, most Americans do not want to be involved in deliberative conversations. Americans favor representative democracy, hoping their representatives will place the voice of the people ahead of self-interest. What’s more, deliberation’s critics argue, discursive attempts at conflict resolution can polarize people when attitudes are strong. Political persuasion scholarship would benefit from recognition that there is a pluralism of normative approaches and research can usefully clarify assumptions derived from these perspectives (Jacobs, Cook, & Delli Carpini, 2009).
Research can usefully lay out the empirical fa
cts on the ground at a particular political moment and in this way shed light on normative prescriptions. If we find that during times of polarization, political discourse contains more personalized than issue-based attacks and its effects are more scabrous than salutary, this suggests that the system would be served by encouraging more civility. If, on the other hand, we find that polarization produces more participation than cynicism, this suggests a different normative course. And if the truth lies primarily in a host of contingent conditions, this too has important implications. Just as we have social and cultivation-based media indicators, we also need political communication indicators that document the communicative consequences of institutional and systemic changes. These empirical facts provide a systematic way of tracking the impact of exogenous forces on diverse political outcomes.
Research on topics like these can advance the science of political persuasion, while also shedding light on normative questions that lie at the heart of the democratic enterprise. As presently practiced, political campaigns are dirty and imperfect, yet also capable of achieving goals that advance the polity. “Democratic politics,” Huckfeldt and his colleagues (2004) conclude, “is a frequently messy business, filled with contentious issues, perplexing dilemmas, and seemingly irresolvable disputes.” And, they add, “this is the way that it must be,” (p. 202).
Must it?
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