Title |
Social Influence in Televised Election Debates: A Potential Distortion of Democracy
|
---|---|
Published in |
PLOS ONE, March 2011
|
DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0018154 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Colin J. Davis, Jeffrey S. Bowers, Amina Memon |
Abstract |
A recent innovation in televised election debates is a continuous response measure (commonly referred to as 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. We report an experiment with 150 participants in which we 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 we were able to influence their perception of who won the debate, their choice of preferred prime minister, and their voting intentions. We argue that there is an urgent need to reconsider the simultaneous broadcast of average response data with televised election debates. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United Kingdom | 12 | 30% |
United States | 11 | 28% |
New Zealand | 1 | 3% |
Unknown | 16 | 40% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 24 | 60% |
Scientists | 14 | 35% |
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 3% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 3% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Portugal | 1 | 2% |
Malaysia | 1 | 2% |
Hong Kong | 1 | 2% |
Brazil | 1 | 2% |
United Kingdom | 1 | 2% |
Japan | 1 | 2% |
United States | 1 | 2% |
Luxembourg | 1 | 2% |
Unknown | 38 | 83% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Researcher | 8 | 17% |
Student > Bachelor | 8 | 17% |
Student > Master | 6 | 13% |
Student > Ph. D. Student | 6 | 13% |
Other | 4 | 9% |
Other | 9 | 20% |
Unknown | 5 | 11% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Psychology | 13 | 28% |
Social Sciences | 12 | 26% |
Computer Science | 4 | 9% |
Arts and Humanities | 3 | 7% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 2 | 4% |
Other | 6 | 13% |
Unknown | 6 | 13% |