Evaluating Communication Campaigns

Summarizes presentations from a September 2007 conference on evaluating communication campaigns. Discusses the mechanism of effecting change through communication; the principles of advocacy evaluation; the design, methods, and tools; and lessons learned

AIDing Contraception: HIV and Recent Trends in Abortion Rates

Since the onset of HIV/AIDS awareness in the early 1980s, much attention has centered around the substantial negative effects of the disease throughout the world. This paper provides evidence of a secondary effect the disease has had on sexual behavior in the United States. Using a difference-in-differences estimation framework and state level data, we show that the perceived threat of HIV resulted in a drop in unwanted pregnancies, as demonstrated by a lower incidence of abortions. Our results suggest that each additional reported case of HIV per 1,000 individuals resulted in 85.5 fewer abortions per 1,000 live births.

Polls, Coalition Signals, and Strategic Voting: An Experimental Investigation of Perceptions and Effects

The paper investigates how poll information and coalition signals affect strategic voting, defined as casting a vote for a party other than the most preferred party to better influence the election outcome. In particular if the outcome of an election is perceived to be close, voters in multi-party systems with proportional representation and coalition governments should have an incentive to cast a vote for the party that best influences the formation of the next government. The study focuses in particular on voters’ attention to and perception of polls and coalition signals sent by parties before elections. The study used an innovative design that embedded a laboratory experiment in two real election campaigns, allowing the manipulation of poll results and coalition signals in a realistic environment. The findings suggest that political sophistication plays a crucial role for the accurate perception of polls and strategic voting. Coalition signals are found to have a surprisingly strong effect on (apparently) strategic voting.

AIDing Contraception: HIV and Recent Trends in Abortion Rates

Since the onset of HIV/AIDS awareness in the early 1980s, much attention has centered around the substantial negative effects of the disease throughout the world. This paper provides evidence of a secondary effect the disease has had on sexual behavior in the United States. Using a difference-in-differences estimation framework and state level data, we show that the perceived threat of HIV resulted in a drop in unwanted pregnancies, as demonstrated by a lower incidence of abortions. Our results suggest that each additional reported case of HIV per 1,000 individuals resulted in 85.5 fewer abortions per 1,000 live births.HIV, abortion, fertility

Social Media in Political Campaigning Around the World: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges

This is a manuscript of an article published as Dimitrova, Daniela V., and Jörg Matthes. "Social Media in Political Campaigning Around the World: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges." Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 95, no. 2 (2018): 333-342. DOI: 10.1177/1077699018770437. Posted with permission.</p

Targeted Advertising and Voter Turnout: An Experimental Study of the 2000 Presidential Election

Scholars disagree whether negative advertising demobilizes or stimulates the electorate. We use an experiment with over 10,200 eligible voters to evaluate the two leading hypotheses of negative political advertising. We extend the analysis to examine whether advertising differentially impacts the turnout of voter subpopulations depending on the advertisement痴 message. In the short term, we find no evidence that exposure to negative advertisements decreases turnout and little that suggests it increases turnout. Any effect appears to depend upon the message of the advertisement and the characteristics of the viewer. In the long term, we find little evidence that the information contained in the treatment groups・advertisements is sufficient to systematically alter turnout.

Reassessing the Link between Voter Heterogeneity and Political Accountability: A Latent Class Regression Model of Economic Voting

While recent research has underscored the conditioning effect of individual characteristics on economic voting behavior, most empirical studies have failed to explicitly incorporate observed heterogeneity into statistical analyses linking citizens' economic evaluations to electoral choices. In order to overcome these drawbacks, we propose a latent class regression model to jointly analyze the determinants and influence of economic voting in Presidential and Congressional elections. Our modeling approach allows us to better describe the effects of individual covariates on economic voting and to test hypotheses on the existence of heterogeneous types of voters, providing an empirical basis for assessing the relative validity of alternative explanations proposed in the literature. Using survey data from the 2004 U.S. Presidential, Senate and House elections, we and that voters with college education and those more interested in political campaigns based their vote on factors other than their economic perceptions. In contrast, less educated and interested respondents assigned considerable weight to economic assessments, with sociotropic jugdgments strongly in uencing their vote in the Presidential election and personal financial considerations affecting their vote in House elections. We conclude that the main distinction in the 2004 election was not between `sociotropic' and `pocketbook' voters, but rather between `economic' and `non-economic' voters

Understanding the nature and etiology of intimate partner violence and

Theoretical perspectives underlying hypotheses about the nature and etiology of intimate partner violence are important as they inform professionals how they should best respond to reduce or eliminate this social problem. Therefore, it is crucial that practice led initiatives are driven by theory that is supported by good quality empirical evidence. This review aims to provide a synthesis of methodologically sound research to understand how intimate partner violence is best conceptualized, and what the implications of this evidence based theory hold for practice and policy. A wealth of evidence supporting the need to further explore and respond to the spectrum of partner violence from a gender inclusive perspective is demonstrated. Implications of the evidence for multidisciplinary work, prevention, assessment, treatment, and policy related to intimate partner violence are discussed

Debating How to Measure Media Exposure in Surveys

To answer many of the most pressing questions in the social sciences, researchers need reliable and valid measures of media exposure that can be implemented in surveys. Despite considerable effort, however, substantial disagreement remains about how best to measure this key concept. This chapter critically reviews the debate surrounding traditional frequency measures of exposure to “news” and contemporary list-based measures of political media exposure. It also evaluates the related debate over how best to capture the effects of media exposure with different observational research designs. Overall, the chapter finds that although substantial progress has been made in measurement and research design, both issues require more attention if scholars are to understand the many and varied effects of media exposure