Closing the Knowledge Gap: How Issue Priming Before Presidential Debate Viewing Encourages Learning and Opinion Articulation

One mechanism by which citizens learn about candidates and issues is through watching presidential debates. Some scholars have raised concerns that these events, however, disproportionately benefit those already high in political knowledge more so than others with lesser knowledge levels. We hypothe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American behavioral scientist (Beverly Hills) 2022-03, Vol.66 (3), p.292-306
Main Authors: Jennings, Freddie J., Wicks, Robert H., McKinney, Mitchell S., Kenski, Kate
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Articulation
Campaigns
Candidates
Citizens
Cognition
Debates
Economic policy
Elaboration
Election results
Knowledge
Learning
Political attitudes
Political campaigns
Politics
Presidential elections
Presidents
Priming
Sophistication
Vice Presidents
Voters
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Summary:One mechanism by which citizens learn about candidates and issues is through watching presidential debates. Some scholars have raised concerns that these events, however, disproportionately benefit those already high in political knowledge more so than others with lesser knowledge levels. We hypothesize that knowledge begets knowledge because it prompts a constructive cognitive process that results from elaboration and reflection. We test this hypothesis in an experiment that also considers whether issue priming could help mitigate the deficit that those lower in political sophistication have when viewing campaign events. Participants (N = 543) watched a 9-minute segment focusing on economic issues drawn from the first 2020 presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joseph Biden. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to an issue priming condition and viewed the debate segment after reading a narrative text on economic policy, and the other half read an unrelated text. The study presents a model that reveals the following: (a) cognitive elaboration mediates the relationship between prior political knowledge and learning from a campaign event, (b) providing citizens with background issue–related knowledge produces a similar elaborative effect as did preexisting political knowledge, and (c) participants demonstrate greater political opinion articulation following this enhanced elaboration leading to more learning. The implications for cultivating a knowledgeable democratic electorate are discussed.
ISSN:0002-7642
1552-3381
DOI:10.1177/00027642211000398