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I examined the effects of celebrity endorsement of political candidates, drawing on third-person effect theory, social identification theory, and political efficacy theory. Participants were 283 students at an American university who took part in a web-based survey that explored attitudes
using actual presidential candidates and real celebrities. Study findings suggest that people view such endorsements as having no impact on their own voting behavior yet influencing that of others by encouraging them to vote for the endorsed candidate. In addition, people positively evaluate
the endorsed political candidate when they hold a high level of identification with the celebrity endorser and are likely to vote for the candidate. Lastly, whereas political efficacy does influence people's intention to vote, it does not appear to influence their evaluation of the candidate.
Limitations of the study and future research are discussed.

In this note we elaborate on the conditions under which on-line and memory-based strategies of political candidate evaluation can be implemented. We suggest that the structure of information may be an important contextual variable affecting the voter's choice of these strategies. In addition, we propose that citizens with less political sophistication are particularly sensitive to structural differences in the political information environment. We use an experimental design that manipulates the information-processing context to test these ideas. Our results suggest that the context in which information is presented plays a critical role in moderating the influence of individual differences in political sophistication.

Today, identity expression and acceptance represent an important area of political advocacy and representation. Yet, how responsive are voters to new racial identity cues promoted by political leaders? Using candidates with interracial backgrounds as a case study, we assess whether voters are responsive to candidates who assert a mixed-race identity or if voters primarily rely on other traits, such as the candidate's family background, in determining their support of that candidate. Using an experimental design, this study presents participants with various hypothetical candidates who vary both in their racial heritages (i.e., candidates with Asian and White interracial parents or Black and White interracial parents) and identity choices (i.e., as single-race minority, single-race White, or biracial). We then compare how the mixed-race, single-race minority, and White participants evaluate the candidate. We expect that the mixed-race participants will be most supportive of candidates who signal a common in-group identity by identifying specifically as "biracial". On the other hand, the single-race minority and White participants should be more likely to adhere to the one-drop rule or hypodescent in their evaluations, meaning they will provide more positive evaluations of interracial candidates who identify as a single-race minority. Our study finds that the single-race minority and White participants completely overlook racial identity cues and instead focus on the description of the candidate's family heritage along with their own assumptions about hypodescent. The mixed-race participants, on the other hand, show strong support for biracial-identified, in-group political candidates This study adds to a burgeoning literature on racial perception and on political representation.

Today, identity expression and acceptance represent an important area of political advocacy and representation. Yet, how responsive are voters to new racial identity cues promoted by political leaders? Using candidates with interracial backgrounds as a case study, we assess whether voters are responsive to candidates who assert a mixed-race identity or if voters primarily rely on other traits, such as the candidate's family background, in determining their support of that candidate. Using an experimental design, this study presents participants with various hypothetical candidates who vary both in their racial heritages (i.e., candidates with Asian and White interracial parents or Black and White interracial parents) and identity choices (i.e., as single-race minority, single-race White, or biracial). We then compare how the mixed-race, single-race minority, and White participants evaluate the candidate. We expect that the mixed-race participants will be most supportive of candidates who signal a common in-group identity by identifying specifically as "biracial". On the other hand, the single-race minority and White participants should be more likely to adhere to the one-drop rule or hypodescent in their evaluations, meaning they will provide more positive evaluations of interracial candidates who identify as a single-race minority. Our study finds that the single-race minority and White participants completely overlook racial identity cues and instead focus on the description of the candidate's family heritage along with their own assumptions about hypodescent. The mixed-race participants, on the other hand, show strong support for biracial-identified, in-group political candidates This study adds to a burgeoning literature on racial perception and on political representation.

"This chapter reviews the literature on the visibility of politicians, parties and political candidates in the news media and the way they are presented in political coverage. Starting with the question who is covered (visibility), the following sections provide an overview of different aspects of how actors are covered, focusing on authenticity, negativity, and personalization. Furthermore, studies analyzing the composition of the news media's issue agenda are discussed. While the review shows a predominance of high-ranked political actors, a shrinking of sound-bites, and a substantial overlap between the issue agenda of the media and politicians or parties, no overarching trend toward more negativity, personalization, and process news can be found in the literature. Several reasons for these findings as well as the impact of contextual factors and differences between media outlets are discussed." (publisher's description)

Investigates the ways in which motivations and goals affect patterns of political information-seeking and the consequent structure of memory about candidates. Undergraduate participants used a computerized system that displayed different layers of information about fictional political candidates; the system recorded the strategies they used to search through this information. Results showed that motivations to engage in effortful processing produced tendencies to engage in within-candidate searches, better recall, and memory structures, clustered by candidate. Confirms that the manner in which people acquire candidate information has important consequences for the way they store that information in memory and that these processes vary according to individual motivations and goals. (Original abstract - amended)

This study investigated the ways in which motivations & goals affect patterns of political information-seeking & the consequent structure of memory about candidates. Undergraduate participants used a computerized system that displayed different layers of information about fictional political candidates; the system recorded the strategies they used to search through this information. Results showed that motivations to engage in effortful processing produced tendencies to engage in within-candidate searches, better recall, & memory structures clustered by candidate. The goal of forming impressions of the candidates, which was expected to lead to within-candidate searching, was in fact modestly associated with weaker tendencies to do so, once effort was taken into account. Impression-formation goals, however, were associated with less attribute-based memory structures. The findings confirm that the manner in which people acquire candidate information has important consequences for the way they store that information in memory, & that these processes vary according to individual motivations & goals. 2 Tables, 3 Figures, 2 Appendixes, 44 References. Adapted from the source document.

ObjectiveRecent research suggests that many American voters use candidate accents as an evaluative heuristic. We build on this research by examining whether this effect is conditional on the partisan positions of the candidate and across participant party identification.MethodsWe designed an experiment using actors to record candidate stump speeches, manipulating the accent of the candidate and the partisan issue position of the candidate.ResultsDemocrats and Republicans in our sample were more likely to believe candidates with southern accents were Republican as opposed Democrat, and were also more likely to negatively evaluate candidates with a southern accent. This was true in both instances regardless of whether the candidate espoused a typical Democratic or Republican issue position. Democrats' judgments of candidates with southern accents, though, were harsher than those of Republicans and, again, this was the case across the partisan positioning of the candidate. Finally, both Democrats and Republicans in our pool were less likely to say they would vote for the candidate with a southern accent regardless of the partisan position of the candidate.ConclusionOur results confirm that accent is a heuristic and add nuance to our understanding of how partisanship shapes this effect.