Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T01:58:27.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Predictions of the Bush-Clinton-Perot Presidential Race from the Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

David P. Fan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper uses the ideodynamic model to assess the impact of persuasive messages on candidate preference in the 1992 presidential election. The methodology is based on approaches common to the natural sciences. These approaches suggested that opinion predictions are most robust when they explicitly omit such factors as opinion poli values, incumbency, and economic performance. Instead, the only persuasive messages used to predict opinion came from 3,394 stories from the Major Paper library of the NEXIS electronic data base scored by computer for news favorable and unfavorable to George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot. The scores were used in the equations of ideodynamics to compute media share time trends that predicted 55 public opinion polls with R2 of 0.84 and 0.79 for Clinton and Perot, respectively. These high R2 values together with the significance of the model's parameters suggested that the news media comprised the dominant influence on candidate preference. Campaign stories were also scored for coverage of different issues, and this coverage was related to good and bad news for the candidates.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 6 , 1996 , pp. 67 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Political Methodology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramowitz, A. I. 1988. An improved model for predicting presidential election outcomes. Political Science and Politics 21: 843–47.Google Scholar
Ansolebehere, S., Behr, R., and Iyengar, S. 1993. The media game: American politics in the television age. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. E. 1993. Weather forecasters should be so accurate: A response to ‘Forewarned before forecast.’ Political Science and Politics 26: 165–66.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. E., and Mann, T. E. 1992. Forecasting the 1992 presidential election: A user's guide to the models. Brookings Review (Fall): 22–27.Google Scholar
Cook, R. D., and Weisberg, S. 1990. Confidence curves in nonlinear regression. Journal of the American Statistical Association 85: 544–51.Google Scholar
Fair, R. C. 1988. The effect of economic events on votes for president: 1984 update. Political Behavior 10: 168–79.Google Scholar
Fan, D. P. 1985. Ideodynamics: The kinetics of the evolution of ideas. Journal of Mathematical Sociology 11: 1–24.Google Scholar
Fan, D. P. 1988. Predictions of public opinion from the mass media: Computer content analysis and mathematical modeling. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Fan, D. P., Brosius, H.-B., and Kepplinger, H. M. 1994. Predictions of the public agenda from television coverage. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 38: 163–77.Google Scholar
Fan, D. P., and Holway, W. B. 1994. Media coverage of cocaine and its impact on usage patterns. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 6: 139–62.Google Scholar
Fan, D. P., and McAvoy, G. 1989. Predictions of public opinion on the spread of the disease of AIDS: Introduction of new computer methodologies. Journal of Sex Research 26: 159–87.Google Scholar
Fan, D. P., and Tims, A. R. 1989. The impact of the news media on public opinion: American presidential election, 1987-1988. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 1: 151–63.Google Scholar
Forsythe, R., Nelson, F., Neumann, G. R., and Wright, J. 1992. Anatomy of an experimental political stock market. American Economic Review 82: 1142–61.Google Scholar
Freeman, J. R. 1983. Granger causality and the time series analysis of political relationships. American Journal of Political Science 27: 327–58.Google Scholar
Granger, C. W. J. 1980. Test for causality: A personal viewpoint. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 2: 329–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greene, J. P. 1993. Forewarned before forecast: Presidential election forecasting models and the 1992 election. Political Science and Politics 26: 17–21.Google Scholar
Guldberg, C. M., and Waage, P. 1964. Studier over affiniteten. in Forhandlinger i Vidensabsselskabet i Christiania. Reprinted The law of mass action: A centenary volume, 1864-1964, edited by Haralsen, H., Norske videnscaps-akademi i Oslo, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, pp. 35–45.Google Scholar
Hamblin, R. L., Jacobsen, R. B., and Miller, J. L. L. 1973. A mathematical theory of social change. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Hibbs, D. A. 1979. The mass public and macroeconomic performance: The dynamics of public opinion toward unemployment and inflation. American Journal of Political Science 23: 705–31.Google Scholar
Hibbs, D. A. 1982. The dynamics of political support for American presidents among occupational and partisan groups. American Journal of Political Science 26: 312–23.Google Scholar
Jamieson, K. H. 1992. Dirty politics: Deception, distraction, and democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kiewiet, D. Roderick. 1983. Macroeconomics and macropolitics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R., and Roderick Kiewiet, D. 1979. Economic grievances and political behavior: The role of personal discontents and collective judgments in congressional voting. American Journal of Political Science 12: 495–527.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R., and Roderick Kiewiet, D. 1981. Sociotropic politics: The American case. British Journal of Political Science 11: 129–62.Google Scholar
Klapper, J. 1960. The effects of mass communications. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, P., Berelson, B., and Gaudet, H. 1994. The people's choice. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pierce.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, M. S., and Rice, T. W. 1992. Forecasting Elections. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
MacKuen, Michael B., Erikson, Robert S., and Stimson, James A. 1989. Macropartisanship. American Political Science Review 83: 1127–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKuen, Michael B., Erikson, Robert S., and Stimson, James A. 1992. Peasants or Bankers? The American electorate and the U.S. Economy. American Political Science Review 86: 597–611.Google Scholar
Nelder, T., and Mead, R. 1965. A simplex method for function minimization. Computer Journal 7: 308–13.Google Scholar
Neuman, W. R., Just, M. R., and Crigler, A. N. 1992. Common knowledge: News and the construction of political meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Charles W., and Smith, Renée M. 1994. Error correction, attitude persistence, and executive rewards and punishments: A behavioral theory of presidential approval. Political Analysis 4: 127–83.Google Scholar
Page, B. I., and Shapiro, R. Y. 1992. The rational public: Fifty years of trends in American's policy preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pindyck, Robert S., and Rubinfeld, Daniel L. 1991. Econometric models and economic forecasts, third edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Throop, A. W. 1992. Consumer sentiment: Its cause and effects. Economic Review (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) 1 (Winter): 35–59.Google Scholar
Valente, T. W. 1993. Diffusion of innovations and policy decision-making. Journal of Communication 43: 30–45.Google Scholar