Presidential Campaign Dynamics and the Ebb and Flow of Talk as a Moderator: Media Exposure, Knowledge, and Political Discussion

This article outlines the dynamic nature of interpersonal discussion about politics and its interactive influence with mass media on candidate issue stances during U.S. presidential campaigns. Using data from the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) for illustration purposes, we show that the interactive relationship between news media and political talk is not static or consistently significant throughout elections. Rather, our illustration shows a rough correspondence between major campaign events and a significant negative interaction between political talk and news media use on knowledge of candidate issue stances. We theorize that major campaign media events influence the sheer amount of discussion citizens engage in, and we show that an increase in discussion coincides with an amplification of inaccuracies concerning knowledge of candidate issue stances. This may be due to the increase in the number of individuals talking about politics after these major campaign events, which in turn produces an overall increase in political discussion across the electorate. This influx of new discussants after major campaign events increases the proportion of what we call "seasonal discussants." Increasing the proportion of voters who tune in to the debates or conventions may not do much to increase the levels of expertise in follow-up discussions among citizens.