Equivalence of Informed Political Participation

Abstract

The 1976 presidential debates were evaluated as an innovation in political communication formats that might overcome existing gaps in electoral participation between the more and less active sectors of society. The equivalence of effects of debate-watching and related behaviors was examined for different levels of age, education, and political interest. The debates were also compared to standard sources of political information. The debates and the processes they stimulated tended to be nonequivalent in exposure, but equivalent in predictive strength. That is, those initially most interested in politics spent more time watching the debates, but did not show greater gains in informed participation per amount of exposure than did other respondents. Comparisons are made with these forms of equivalence for standard media sources. Several explanations for these results are considered and the findings are discussed in terms of their relevance for the "knowledge gap" literature.

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