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International Journal of Public Opinion Research 15:27-43 (2003)
© 2003 World Association for Public Opinion Research
Do the Media Have a Direct Impact on the Vote? The Case of the 1997 Canadian Election
Agnieszka Dobrzynska is a researcher in the Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the Université de Montréal.
André Blais is Professor of Political Science at the Université de Montréal.
Richard Nadeau is Professor of Political Science at the Université de Montréal.
Address Correspondence to Agnieszka Dobrzynska, Département de science politique, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, (Québec), Canada, H3C 3J7, Email: Agnieszka.Dobrzynska{at}UMontreal.ca
This paper establishes the methodological foundations for a systematic analysis of the direct impact of the media on the vote. We propose to combine two different approaches: the ‘linkage’ approach which relates media coverage to voting intentions, and the ‘attentiveness’ approach which compares the vote choice of those who pay most and least attention to television news. We apply these two methods to the 1997 Canadian election. We find support for the hypothesis that, during the election campaign, voting intentions for a party increased (decreased) when media coverage of that party was systematically positive (or negative), among those who followed the news and decided how to vote during the campaign, but we find no evidence that, on election day, those more attentive to the news voted differently from those less attentive. We conclude that the media temporarily moved voting intentions during the course of the 1997 Canadian election but that they appear to have had no direct impact on the final vote.