Effects of Postdebate Coverage on Spontaneous Policy Reasoning

摘要

Candidate debates are unique in modern politics in their potential to draw widespread attention to policy reasoning, but game-framed postdebate coverage may interfere with this potentially deliberative moment. Two experiments tested effects of policy- versus game-framing of postdebate coverage on audience use of policy reasons, using a new dependent variable we develop and label spontaneous policy reasoning (SPR). In Study 1, a game-framed postdebate story decreased SPR relative to no postdebate story, while exposure to a policy-framed story increased SPR. Study 2 added manipulations of the timing and wording of the reason-giving prompt, replicating the framing effects in another context while validating SPR as a spontaneous tendency to give reasons distinct from existing measures of the ability to do so.