Priming Past the Primary: Mass Media, Issue Salience and Candidate Evaluation in a Race Governor

Past research indicates that voters have begun to rely less on party affiliations and more on candidates\u27 images and positions on issues in making voting decisions. Through using the mass media, voters can learn about issues and candidates, and form images of the candidates. Our study concerns the effects of mass mediated election news, and of political advertising, on voters\u27 choice of candidates. In particular, we examined the roles of media agenda-setting and priming, and of negative political advertising, in the development of voter’s evaluations of candidates. An important trend in agenda-setting research is to look beyond issue saliences as dependent variables to determine what relationships issue saliences have with other phenomena, such as public opinion and voting choice. Research into priming indicates that the issues and other aspects of political life (e.g., a candidate\u27s character) that become salient in an election are used by voters to evaluate candidates for public office, and therefore indirectly affect voting behavior. An analysis of a sample survey of eligible voters in the 1990 race for Wisconsin governor found that attention to news accounts of the election is associated with higher levels of salience given some issues in that election. In line with the priming model, issue salience had some, although modest, relationship to evaluation of the candidates. Political commercials, including negative ads, appeared to affect candidate evaluations more directly, while news media appeared to work through issue salience to affect evaluations of candidates. Some evidence was found of a \u27\u27boomerang effect of negative advertising in this campaign. Identification with political parties had only a small direct relationship to voting intention. Instead, this identification appears to work along with the direct and indirect effects of communication variables to influence candidate evaluation, which then appears to affect voting choice

The Relationship of Fans’ Sports-Team Identification and Facebook Usage to Purchase of Team Products

Social media has become a regular direct marketing component for sports teams. This study explores the link between team identification and use of a professional sports team’s social-media channels. Questions to answer include, Does social media impact identification fans have with a team or vice versa? What does the amount of social-media use do to impact the relationship? Does this activity lead to increased sales of tickets and merchandise? Data collected by an Internet survey of fans of a professional baseball team show a positive relationship between team identification and use of the team’s Facebook page as well as to team related purchases. Implications for theorists understanding the role of social media in branding as well as implications for sports marketing are discussed

Information Seeking Among Women Aged 18 to 25 About the Risk of Sexual Aggression

Many researchers have studied risk factors related to sexual violence, and few studies have explored what differences account for the various ways women seek information about sexual violence. This study accomplishes this by applying part of the Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) model to sexual aggression among young females (18-25 years). The results from a national survey of females show that negative affect (worry and anger combined) showed a direct positive effect on risk information seeking. Also, binge drinking does not make women feel much more at risk from sexual assault. Some differences exist between women in school and out