Immediate and Delayed Responses to a Carter-Ford Debate: Assessing Public Opinion

Abstract

The televised Carter-Ford debate elicited consistently more favorable responses among young voters viewing in a lecture hall under controlled conditions and responding immediately afterward than among a comparable group who viewed it in settings of their own choice and whose reactions were obtained only after a lapse of four to seven days. Where the immediately-after reactions divided very much along partisan lines, the gains Ford registered among respondents of all political persuasions in the week following are attributed to contamination by published poll results about the Carter performance, criticism of the debate format, and other media coverage of the debate. Such findings underEne the futility of tracing a particular response during a campaign to a specific message without taking into account the total communication environment.