The Temporal Focus of Campaign Communication
The Temporal Focus of Campaign Communication
复制标题
竞选传播的时间焦点
作者：
Stefan Müller
过去和现在的经验会影响决策。选举中的投票行为还涉及回顾性和前瞻性的考虑。然而，我们不知道各方在多大程度上通过强调过去、现在和未来来应对这些考虑。我认为各方不仅做出承诺，而且面临讨论过去和现在的激励。我还预计，现任地位会影响这些时间维度上的情感言论。使用监督机器学习，我发现了 1949 年至 2017 年间在 9 个国家发表的 621 份政党宣言中的时间修辞焦点。政党平均将宣言的一半用于未来的承诺，而另一半则描述过去和现在。我还表明，关于过去和现在的言论先前观察到了现任者和反对党之间的情绪差异。研究结果强调了竞选传播的时间维度如何增强我们对政党竞争的理解。
Experiences from the past and present influence decision-making. Voting behavior at elections also involves retrospective and prospective considerations. Yet, we do not know the degree to which parties react to these considerations by emphasizing the past, present, and future. I posit that parties do not only make promises but face incentives to discuss the past and present. I also expect that incumbency status conditions emotive rhetoric across these temporal dimensions. Using supervised machine learning, I uncover the temporal rhetorical focus in 621 party manifestos published in nine countries between 1949 and 2017. Parties devote, on average, half of a manifesto to future promises, while the other half describes the past and present. I also show that statements on the past and present drive previously observed differences in sentiment between incumbents and opposition parties. The findings underscore how the temporal dimension of campaign communication enhances our understanding of party competition.