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Full-Text Articles in American Politics
A Functional Analysis Of Non-Presidential Primary Debates, William L. Benoit, Jayne R. Goode
A Functional Analysis Of Non-Presidential Primary Debates, William L. Benoit, Jayne R. Goode
Speaker & Gavel
Despite the fact that political debates are increasingly common at all levels of government, relatively little work investigates the content of non-presidential debates (and work on primary debates is even less common). This study breaks new ground by analyzing four non-presidential primary debates. Two Democratic gubernatorial debates, one Republican U.S. Senate debate, and one Republican U.S. House debate were content analyzed using the framework of the functional theory of political campaign discourse. Overall, these debates were mainly positive, with 71% acclaims, 22% attacks, and 7% defenses. The Democratic (and gubernatorial) debates had more attacks and defenses and fewer defenses than …
Because I Said So: A Functional Theory Analysis Of Evidence In Political Tv Spots, Jayne R. Henson, William L. Benoit
Because I Said So: A Functional Theory Analysis Of Evidence In Political Tv Spots, Jayne R. Henson, William L. Benoit
Speaker & Gavel
This study examines presidential general election television advertising (1952-2004), primary advertising (1952-2008), and non-presidential advertising from 2002 (gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, U.S. House) to understand the use of evidence (statements for which sources are provided) in such campaign messages. 8% of the themes in these spots were supported by evidence (that is, identified a source for a claim). However, the longitudinal presidential data suggests that evidence in advertising was rare until the 1990s, when Bill Clinton in particular employed a great deal of evidence in his spots. Although the appeals across all ads were mainly positive (70% of the themes in …