COMMUNICATION AND MIDTERM ELECTIONS Media, Message, and Mobilization JOHN ALLEN HENDRICKS Edited by DAN SCHILL and COMMUNICATION AND MIDTERM ELECTIONS This page intentionally left blank COMMUNICATION AND MIDTERM ELECTIONS MEDIA, MESSAGE, AND MOBILIZATION Edited by John Allen Hendricks and Dan Schill Palgrave macmillan COMMUNICATION AND MIDTERM ELECTIONS Selection and editorial content © John Allen Hendricks and Dan Schill 2016 Individual chapters © their respective contributors 2016 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-49452-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission. In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc., One New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, NY 10004-1562. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. ISBN 978-1-349-55663-2 E-PDF ISBN: 978–1–137–48801–5 DOI: 10.1057/9781137488015 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Communication and midterm elections : media, message, and mobilization / edited by John Allen Hendricks and Dan Schill. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. United States. Congress—Elections, 2014. 2. Governors—United States— Election. 3. Elections—United States—States. 4. Mass media—Political aspects— United States. 5. Communication in politics—United States. I. Hendricks, John Allen, editor of compilation. II. Schill, Dan, 1979– editor of compilation. JK19682014.C66 2015 324.973(cid:2)0932—dc23 2015020609 A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library. CONTENTS List of Illustrations v ii Preface x i Acknowledgments x v Part I The 2014 Election: Issues and Agendas 1. Media, Message, and Mobilization: Political Communication in the 2014 Election Campaigns 3 Dan Schill and John Allen Hendricks 2. The Cult(ure) of Analytics in 2014 2 5 Jessica Baldwin-Philippi 3. The “Documented Voter”: Voter ID Messaging in the 2014 Texas Midterm Election 4 3 Joshua M. Scacco, Regina G. Lawrence, and Ori Tenenboim 4. Commonsense Protections or Government Interference in Private Decisions? Competing Media Frames in the Battle over Tennessee’s Abortion Amendment 5 7 Amy E. Jasperson, Charles Kelley Jr., and Kirby Bennett 5. Political Communication and Affective Polarization in the 2014 Midterm Elections for the US Senate: The Cases of Iowa, North Carolina, and Georgia 8 3 Freddie J. Jennings, Roc í o Galarza, and Benjamin R. Warner Part II Media Coverage and Effects of Television, Newspapers, and Late-Night Comedy Shows in 2014 6. The 2014 Midterm Elections on Local Television: Frames, Sources, and Valence 1 01 Daniela V. Dimitrova and Sisi Hu vi CONTENTS 7. Visual Framing of 2014 US Senate Campaign: Conflict Bias in News Coverage 1 15 Joan L. Conners 8. The Serious Business of Late-Night Political Humor: Foreign Policy Issue Salience in the 2014 Midterm Elections 1 31 Jody C. Baumgartner and Jonathan S. Morris Part III Technology in the Political Process 9. The Influence of Twitter Posts on Candidate Credibility: The 2014 Michigan Midterms 1 45 Terri L. Towner 10. Picturing the Senate Candidates: Image Building in the Twitterverse 169 Nicole Smith Dahmen 11. Personalization and Gender: 2014 Gubernatorial Candidates on Social Media 1 91 Regina G. Lawrence, Shannon C. McGregor, Arielle Cardona, and Rachel R. Mour ão Part IV Advertising in the 2014 Political Process 12. Campaign Advertising in Florida’s 2014 Gubernatorial Election: Candidate Images, Voter Enthusiasm, and Partisanship 2 09 David Lynn Painter and Tom Vizcarrondo 13. Midterm Voters: An Investigation of the Heuristic Systematic Processing Model and Political Advertisements 2 25 Lindsey A. Harvell and Gwendelyn S. Nisbett 14. Blue Governors in Red States and Red Governors in Blue States 2 41 Hyun Jung Yun and Jae Hee Park About the Editors 2 67 List of Contributors 2 69 Index 2 75 ILLUSTRATIONS Figures 1.1 Voter turnout rates: Presidential and midterm elections, 1789–2014 9 4.1 Numbers of state-enacted abortion restrictions over time 5 9 4.2 Balance in advertisements by media market (September to Election Day 2014) 6 9 4.3 Percentage of winning vote on Amendment 1 by county 7 0 4.4 Voter turnout by county 7 1 5.1 Theoretical model of aff ect polarization 8 8 5.2 Structural model of aff ect polarization 9 1 7.1 Percentage of newspapers covering 2014 elections on front page, September 2 to Election Day 1 21 10.1 A typical profi le/header image design 1 78 10.2 Campaign graphics in the header image 1 78 10.3 Campaign graphic in the profi le image and candidate photo in a formal pose or on-the-job in the header image 1 79 13.1 Relationship between attitudes toward Wendy Davis and processing 2 33 13.2 Issue vs. image vs. comparison ads and intent to vote for Greg Abbott 2 34 Tables 1.1 Gain or loss for president’s party in midterm election years, 1962–2014 4 1.2 State voter turnout in the 2014 midterm election compared to the 2010 midterm election 7 1.3 Volume of ads and estimated ad spending ( January 1 to Election Day) 1 6 1.4 Ad spending and ad volume of top Senate races in 2014 (September 1 to Election Day) 1 6 1.5 Ad spending and ad volume in top gubernatorial races in 2014 (September 1 to Election Day) 1 7 3.1 External effi cacy OLS regression model 5 1 viii ILLUSTRATIONS 4.1 Ad expenditures by Tennessee media market 6 8 4.2 Spearman’s rank order correlation test between No-on-One spending and no vote by media market 7 1 4.3 Spearman’s rank order correlation test between all spending in media market and average turnout by media market 7 2 4.4 Percentage of frames by group on Facebook pages in the 2014 Tennessee Amendment 1 campaign 7 4 5.1 Descriptive statistics for variables included in communication and polarization structural model 9 0 6.1 News sources used by local Iowa television channels in 2014 midterm election 1 10 7.1 States with front page coverage of 2014 Senate race 1 22 7.2 Profi le of prominence of 2014 Senate front page coverage 1 24 7.3 Profi le of visuals in 2014 Senate front page coverage 1 24 8.1 Eff ect of reading humor on perceived salience, importance, and anxiety concerning the activities of ISIS and Russia’s invasion/ occupation of Ukraine 1 37 9.1 2014 Michigan candidate tweet frames and tone 1 51 9.2 2014 Michigan tweet tone by frames 1 51 9.3 2014 Michigan tweets by candidate 1 52 9.4 Michigan 2014 candidate credibility 1 57 9.5 2014 Michigan candidate vote choice and vote likelihood 1 59 9.6 2014 Michigan government trust and external effi cacy 1 59 10.1 Coding guidelines with succinct operational defi nitions for 2014 candidate Twitter images 1 77 10.2 Frequency of image types used via Twitter for the leading candidates in eight competitive 2014 Senate races 1 80 10.3 2014 Twitter candidate mean photo scores with standard deviation by attribute, category, and total by political party 1 80 10.4 Mean photo scores with standard deviation by category and total for 2014 leading Senate candidates by state 1 83 11.1 Primary uses of social media by three select female gubernatorial candidates, 2014 1 97 12.1 Stimuli ads by condition, sponsorship, tone, content focus, and title 2 15 12.2 Changes in image evaluations and voter enthusiasm by tone and content focus 2 17 12.3 Changes in image evaluations and voter enthusiasm by viewer partisanship 2 19 14.1 Repeated-measures ANOVA on changes in candidate ratings by advertising themes in interaction with state color and party 2 51 14.2 Contrast tests on changes in candidate ratings by advertising themes in interaction with state color and party 2 52 14.3 Mean and standard deviation of candidate ratings by advertising themes in interaction with state color and party 2 54 ILLUSTRATIONS ix 14.4 Repeated-measures ANOVA on changes in candidate ratings by social media in interaction with state color and party 2 58 14.5 Contrast tests on changes in candidate ratings by social media in interaction with state color and party 2 59 14.6 Mean and standard deviation of candidate ratings by social media in interaction with state color and party 2 60