How Perceptions of Parties Evolve Following Leadership Change: Evidence from Panel data and Computer-assisted Content Analysis of News Coverage

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The aim of this project is to study voter perceptions of party leaders by estimating the impact of leadership change and its media coverage on public attitudes using advanced tools for evaluating voter opinions and media content. Recent events in the United Kingdom create unique opportunities to examine leadership change's effects on voter perceptions; all seven major national and regional British parties changed leaders since 2015. Fifteen waves (and counting) of the British Election Study (BES) Internet Panel tracked the same voters' attitudes towards parties before and after leader transitions producing unique data to estimate within-respondent attitude change. Evaluating individuals' attitudes before and after change, the panel data structure empowers the project to determine leadership change's effect on the same individual's perceptions. Developments in computer-assisted content analysis further enables the project to identify the pathways and environment determining leadership change. Data from major daily newspapers will be merged with the BES to assess the moderating impact of media coverage. By combining the novel research design using panel data with advanced tools for revealing underlying voter support for parties and content analysis of media data, the project aims to conclusively identify leadership change's effects on voter opinions.