The Influence of Presumed Media Influence on Strategic Voting

An increasingly influential line of research on media effects suggests that some of the effects of news media on society take place because people perceive media as influential. In this article, the authors test this notion, in the context of voting decisions. The authors propose that voters' perceptions regarding the influence of media will be related to their intention to vote strategically-that is, to vote for a party they favor less than their most preferred option. If news media are perceived to persuade other voters to switch their votes, it will more likely be necessary to switch one's vote to either conform to or counterbalance the effects of media on others. Two studies, utilizing three data sets, collected in the context of the Israeli Knesset elections of 2003 and 2006 using different measures of strategic voting were used to test the hypothesis that perceptions of media influence on others will relate to strategic voting. The hypothesis was confirmed in both studies.