Premium
The European election of 1989: British television viewers' knowledge, attitudes and voting behaviour
Author(s) -
Wober J. M.,
Brosius HB.,
Weinmann G.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1996.tb01094.x
Subject(s) - voting , newspaper , turnout , psychology , reading (process) , social psychology , sample (material) , voting behavior , politics , advertising , political science , law , business , chemistry , chromatography
A representative sample of British viewers answered questions before and after the 1989 EC election. On both occasions they filled in a viewing diary yielding unobtrusive measures of amounts of viewing in each of several programme genres including news and current affairs. In the first wave they gave opinions on integration among EC nations, on another measure of (perceived) amount of viewing of television election coverage (and of reading newspaper coverage) and an indication of knowledge. In the second wave they reported whether they had voted and gave opinions on television coverage of the election. Analysis across waves found no independent relationships between amount of news and current affairs viewed in the pre‐election week and reported voting. This behaviour was, however, independently determined by knowledge, which was in turn significantly linked with the amount of coverage viewed. Voting was also related with a measure of the desirability of television coverage of pan‐European activities. Two other attitude clusters covering support for more explicitly political and economic aspects of integration were not independently connected with voting turnout.