Seminar 9
Date: 29th April, 2014
Time: 4 - 5.15pm
Venue: Building 24, Copland, Room 1171, LJ Hume Centre
Speaker: Dan Stevens is an associate professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Exeter. He was previously an assistant professor at the University of Miami and at Hartwick College in the US.
He works primarily on questions surrounding political communication and political behaviour in the US and the UK. He has published on these topics in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, and is currently working on a co-authored book (with Nick Vaughan-Williams) on public perceptions of security threats in Britain, under contract with Manchester University Press.
Paper Title: (Mis) information and the Electorate: Political Ad Claims, Political Knowledge, and Turnout
Paper Abstract: This paper provides the first systematic examination of the relationship between the accuracy of the claims made in political advertising, perceptions and knowledge of candidates, and turnout. Previous research on the effects of advertising has steered clear of questions of the accuracy of the claims they make. This paper focuses on presidential advertising nationwide in the 2008 US election, using three sources of data: analysis of the accuracy of the claims made in all the presidential ads aired, constituting more than 400 ads and 1600 issue and trait claims; aggregate data on turnout; and survey data that allow examination of individual-level effects on perceptions and knowledge of the candidates, and on turnout.