2008 Conference Program - Midwest Political Science Association

Saturday, April 5-8:00 am
22-3 MOBILIZATION AND VOTE CHOICE
EXPERIMENTS
Room PDR 4 on the 3rd Floor, Sat at 8:00 am
Chair Peter John Loewen, Universite de Montreal
peter.john.loewen@umontreal.ca
Paper The Persuasive Effects of Direct Mail: A Regression
Discontinuity Approach
We use discontinuities in a targeting formula to test the effect of
direct mail in a competitive down-ballot statewide election. Our
results suggest that direct mail can have both a statistically and
politically significant effect on vote choice.
Alan Gerber, Yale University
alan.gerber@yale.edu
Dan Kessler, Stanford University
fkessler@stanford.edu
Marc Meredith, Stanford University
mmeredit@stanford.edu
Paper Both Sides Now: A Field Experiment with Competing Messages
A field experiment with 6000 treated households and 4 million
in control with randomized messages from two campaigns was
conducted in an Ontario election in 2007. Manipulating both sides,
we measure the conditionality of the effects of direct mail.
Peter John Loewen, Universite de Montreal
peter.john.loewen@umontreal.ca
Daniel Rubenson, Ryerson University
rubenson@ryerson.ca
Paper Advertising and Voters' Perceptions: Variations in Tone, Voice,
and Frequency
We conduct a randomized experiment showing promotional and
attack ads to respondents in varying frequencies. We also vary the
gender of the voice in the ad. Tone, frequency, and voice all affect
placements on ideology, partisanship, and issues.
Lynn Vavreck, University of California, Los Angeles
lvavreck@ucla.edu
John Geer, Vanderbilt University
geer@vanderbilt.edu
Paper Voter Mobilization and Turnout: A Study of Five Elections in
Los Angeles
This paper examines voter mobilization efforts led by multi-groups
on voter turnout in five elections in Los Angeles. The data-set
contains 188,000 people and the results show that contact has an
important positive effect on turnout.
James Ryan Lamare, Cornell University
jrl42@cornell.edu
James W. Lamare, Florida Atlantic University
jlamare@fau.edu
Paper How Issue Salience Shapes the Relevance of Party Reputation
We explore how differential issue salience shapes the way voters
draw inferences from the party affiliation of candidates.
Henry A. Kim, University of Arizona
h27kim@email.arizona.edu
Brad LeVeck, University of California, San Diego
bleveck@ucsd.edu
Disc. Janelle Wong, University of Southern California
janellew@usc.edu
23-9 CAMPAIGN TACTICS: THE UTILITY OF
CAMPAIGN ADVERTISING
Room Salon 6 on the 3rd Floor, Sat at 8:00 am
Chair Monica C. Schneider, Miami University of Ohio
mschneider@muohio.edu
Paper Non-Presidential Political Advertising in Campaign 2004
This study applies Functional theory to over 1000 non-presidential
political ads from the 2004 campaign; functions, topics,
incumbency, party, campaign phase, ad medium, ad sponsor, and
outcome are considered.
William L. Benoit, University of Missouri
benoitw@missouri.edu
David Airne, University of Alabama
dairne@alabama.edu
Paper Let’s Get Serious: Ads, Political Learning, and Cognitive
Engagement
Using data from the Wisconsin Advertising Project and the 2000
ANES this paper examines the extent to which citizens learn from
political advertising and whether the content of advertising matters
for cognitive engagement.
Amber Wichowsky, University of Wisconsin, Madison
wichowsky@wisc.edu
Paper The Mobilizing Effect of Political Ads in Senate Elections, 2002
& 2006
We evaluate the difference between electronic, "air war" campaign
efforts and local "ground war" GOTV efforts upon turnout in
off-year Senate races nationwide at the county level by using the
mismatched media market and state boundaries.
Keena Lipsitz, Queens College, CUNY
keena.lipsitz@qc.cuny.edu
Jeremy M. Teigen, Ramapo College
jteigen@ramapo.edu
Paper Picture Perfect: Influencing Voters with Imagery in
Congressional Campaigns
I examine the use of campaign imagery across 3 years of
Congressional campaigns and find that the type of person pictured
in the ad has a substantive impact on how voters view the candidate.
Nathaniel Swigger, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
swigger@uiuc.edu
Disc. Kelly D. Patterson, Brigham Young University
Kelly_Patterson@byu.edu
25-9 TRUST IN GOVERNMENT
Room UEH 405 on the 4th Floor, Sat at 8:00 am
Chair George William Dougherty, University of Pittsburgh
gwdjr@pitt.edu
Paper Measuring Trust in Government in the Baltic States: An Index
Approach
This paper compares the results of measurements of the level of
trust in government and society among young adults in Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania. Measurements were recorded three years
apart and changes compared.
David E. McNabb, Pacific Lutheran University
mcnabbde@aol.com
Paper The States and Trust in Government: Exploring the Causes of
the Divergent Levels of Trust in Government Between the States
This paper examines variations in the levels of political trust
between the states of the U.S. It attempts to understand the reasons
for the varying levels of trust by examining various factors such as
socioeconomic factors and political culture.
Kathryn Cooper, University of California, Irvine
kacooper@uci.edu
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