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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 The Political-Communication Effects of Televised Presidential Debates on First-Time Voters: The Example of 2012 Taiwan President Election

The Political-Communication Effects of Televised Presidential Debates on First-Time Voters: The Example of 2012 Taiwan President Election

Cheng-Shih Lin and Hsuan-Yi Chou
2014 / 05
Volume 21, No.1

pp.47-87
10.6612/tjes.2014.21.01.47-87
Paper

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the political-communication effects of televised debates on voters in election contexts. In Taiwan, televised debates are still an emerging political-communication tool and an underresearched topic. The major research question in this paper is does televised debates increases voters' turnout intentions and other forms of political participations. Additionally, compared with previous studies which only focused on the impact of the use of different media on election participations, the current papers further discuss the audience's effectiveness evaluations on televised debates and identification with the medium through which the debates are held. Specifically, this paper focuses on first-time voters and conducts an experiment to compare the political-communication effects between voters who watched televised debates of the 2012 presidential election and voters who did not. Results show that watching televised debates can increase voters' issue-related election knowledge. Furthermore, there is a higher possibility for voters who watched televised debates to change their voting target. For medium-evaluation effects, voters who watched debates generate more favorable impact on medium-effectiveness evaluations and medium identification. Finally, voters' long-term political interests, political participation, medium dependence, and TV usage habits moderate the political-communication effects of televised debates. The research findings affirm the positive role of televised debates in political elections and provide related theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords

televised debates

political communications

election participations

first-time voters