What is the difference between pocketbook and sociotropic voting

This study tests the hypotheses by analyzing individual vote choice in the and American presidential elections, which are the two most recent incumbent elections. Certainly, campaign issues were somewhat distinctive in each election. For instance, compared to the election, the economy was a more important issue in the election, which could have had an effect on voting behavior. However, this did not mean that economic voting was absent in the election.

Accordingly, the conditional effects of news consumption on economic voting tend to be prominent in incumbent elections. This study investigates economic voting by analyzing the ANES survey data in and The dependent variable in the following analyses is individual vote choice.

Because economic voting is about attributing responsibility for economic conditions to government the president , vote choice is treated as a dichotomous variable. Vote choice is measured as voting intention because voters tend to over-report that they have voted for the winner after elections Atkeson ; Wright If a respondent intends to vote for the incumbent candidate, he or she is coded as 1, otherwise 0.

As mentioned previously, the main independent variables are sociotropic and pocketbook economic evaluations. Measuring economic evaluations, I focus on retrospection because economic voting, in theory, is based on government accountability Lewis-Beck and Nadeau The ANES asks respondents to evaluate changes in their personal economic conditions and the national economy retrospectively.

According to economic voting theory, the economic evaluation variables positively affect the dependent variable. News consumption is a conditional variable in this study. Because there is no direct measure of news consumption, news consumption is treated as media exposure. Hence, news consumption is measured as the frequency of reading newspapers and watching national TV news programs per week.

According to the survey results, TV and newspapers are the most used media sources for news. About 85 percent of survey respondents watched national TV news at least once a week. In the case of newspapers, it was about 61 percent. Newspaper and TV news consumption are separately coded since different types of news media can result in distinctive media effects Beaudoin and Thorson ; Mondak ; Shah, Kwak, and Holbert Prior research Iyengar indicates that TV news is more episodic and event oriented.

In general, television news has less room to put economic problems into a social context. Heavy consumers of newspapers tend to vote for candidates according to their sociotropic evaluations, according to this reasoning.

In contrast, the conditional effects of media use are less prominent among television news viewers. Patterns of news media exposure vary across voters. For instance, according to the and survey results, about 22 and 31 percent of the respondents, respectively, never read newspapers or watched TV news for a week.

In contrast, about 30 percent of voters in and 28 percent in read newspapers or watch TV news every day of the week. These frequencies are somewhat uniformly distributed across different categories. Measuring media exposure by utilizing survey data may have some limitations, such as over-reporting. Beyond the main variables, this study includes multiple control variables drawing on prior research Gomez and Wilson ; Lewis-Beck and Nadeau Based on prior research Godbout and Belanger ; Gomez and Wilson , three issues social spending, defense spending, and racial issue are selected.

The issue voting literature shows that distance is negatively related to the dependent variable Enelow and Hinich The ANES asks respondents about their issue positions ranging from 1 to 7 and their perceptions of the issue positions of candidates ranging from 1 to 7.

As the difference increases, citizens are less likely to vote for incumbent candidates. Previous voting studies Gomez and Wilson ; Lewis-Beck and Nadeau also generally included partisanship, ideology, demographics, and socioeconomic variables.

In this study, party identification and ideology are measured by using a seven-point summary scale. Since the dependent variable in this study is dichotomous a dummy variable , a probit regression model is used to test the hypotheses. In order to examine conditional effects, interaction models are used. By including interactions between the main independent variables and conditional variables in econometric models, we can examine the conditional effects.

Previous research that has examined the conditional effects on economic voting often divides observations into different groups according to a conditional variable Godbout and Belanger ; Gomez and Wilson ; Mutz However, this tends to produce biased results because dividing observations into different groups according to a conditional variable means that all other variables are interacted with the conditional variable Brambor, Clark, and Golder This study investigates whether or not news consumption conditions economic voting.

Hence, the following econometric models include two interaction variables: the interactions between the economic evaluation variables and the media exposure variables of TV or newspapers. The interactions are modeled thus:. The news media exposure variables can be interacted with the economic evaluation variables and included in one model. However, theoretically, they are not expected to affect economic voting independently.

In fact, when these variables are included in the baseline model, they do not significantly influence the dependent variable independently. Therefore, the TV and newspaper exposure variables are separately interacted with the economic evaluation variables. Furthermore, the main results in the following section are not altered by including multiple interaction variables in the model. Since interaction effects are difficult to comprehend only by reading the probit regression coefficients, I graphically show the conditional effects of the news consumption variables.

Brambor, Clark, and Golder suggested statistical simulation methods and graphical presentations when reporting interaction effects based on regression results. The following section presents the regression and simulation results. Table 1 reports the probit regression results that do not include any interaction variables.

The results show how citizens evaluate presidential candidates. Because probit regression coefficients cannot be directly interpreted as the effects of the independent variables on the dependent variable, this study reports the marginal effects of the independent variables on the dependent variable.

Also, the probability changes of voting for incumbent candidates when the values of independent variables change from the minimum to the maximum are reported in Table 1. According to the regression results in Table 1 , economic voting is observed in the and elections. In particular, sociotropic evaluations significantly affected vote choice in those elections. In other words, citizens who positively evaluated national economic conditions tended to vote for incumbent candidates in and For instance, voters who most positively evaluated the national economy were about 64 percent more likely to vote for Obama than voters who most negatively evaluated national economic conditions in the election.

The probability change was about 41 percent in Unlike sociotropic voting, pocketbook voting was not observed in the elections. If we set the statistical significance level at. As introduced previously, multiple control variables are included in the models.

Most of the control variables show expected signs and statistical significance in Table 1. According to the regression results, partisanship, ideology, and issue perceptions significantly explain vote choice. The results in the table are comparable with prior research Gomez and Wilson ; Lewis- Beck and Nadeau , which implies that the baseline model is valid and reliable. This study argues that news consumption positively conditions sociotropic voting. In other words, voters who more frequently watch and read news are more likely to vote for candidates according to their evaluations of the national economy.

Newspaper and TV news consumption may condition economic voting in different ways; therefore, both media exposure variables are interacted separately with the economic evaluation variables. Table 2 reports the probit regression results from the interaction models. As with the regression results in Table 1 , most of the control variables show expected signs and statistical significance in the table.

The interaction variable between the sociotropic variable and the TV news exposure variable shows statistical significance in Table 2. Besides this interaction variable, the other interaction variables are statistically insignificant. However, as mentioned previously, this does not necessarily mean that news media exposure does not condition economic voting. In order to correctly examine the conditional effects of news consumption on economic voting, I use statistical simulations and present them graphically Brambor, Clark and Golder Figure 1 shows the marginal effects of sociotropic evaluations on vote choice dependent on changes in television news exposure.

The figure includes two panels reporting the results from the and elections. In each panel, the x-axis represents the level of TV news exposure from 0 to 7 , and the y-axis denotes the marginal effects of sociotropic evaluations on vote choice. The solid line in each panel represents the conditional effects of television news exposure on sociotropic economic voting.

According to the simulation results in the top panel in Figure 1 , the marginal effects of sociotropic evaluations on vote choice increase as the level of television news exposure increases. For instance, the marginal effects of sociotropic evaluations on vote choice are about. In contrast, the effects increase about twofold when voters watched national TV news six times a week.

In other words, in the presidential election, heavy television news users tended to rely more on their assessments of national economic conditions when they voted for candidates.

The bottom panel in Figure 1 also showed that TV news consumption tended to condition sociotropic voting in a positive manner in the presidential election. According to the simulation results, the marginal effects are not statistically significant when the level of television news exposure is below three. Voters who watched national TV news fewer than three times a week did not seriously consider their sociotropic evaluations when they casted ballots in the election.

However, when citizens watched television news more than three times a week, they tended to vote for candidates according to their sociotropic evaluations. The marginal effects are about. The results support the main argument of this study that media exposure positively conditions sociotropic economic voting. Previous studies Beaudoin and Thorson ; Druckman have suggested that different types of news media result in distinctive media effects.

Hence, this study measures news consumption as newspaper and television news exposures. Figure 2 shows the conditional effects of newspaper exposure on sociotropic voting. Unlike the previous figure, the results from the and elections are different. The top panel in Figure 2 reports the marginal effects of sociotropic evaluations on vote choice in The effects are statistically significant and tend to decrease as the level of newspaper exposure increases.

The results imply that voters who frequently read newspapers tend to rely less on their evaluations of the national economy when they vote for candidates. However, this pattern was not observed in the election. According to the bottom panel in Figure 2 , the marginal effects are significant among voters who read newspapers two to four times a week. However, unlike the top panel in the figure, the effects tend to increase as the level of newspaper exposure increases, even though the slope was gentle.

According to the results in the figure, newspaper exposure seemed to affect sociotropic voting in However, it is difficult to assert whether reading newspapers positively or negatively conditions sociotropic voting based on the results in the figure.

The results in Figure 1 and Figure 2 imply that different types of media can produce distinctive media effects. Generally speaking, newspapers carry more interpretive information to consumers than TV news Iyengar In other words, compared to television news, newspapers have more space to frame national economic conditions either as national problems or personal matters. Furthermore, through op-ed pages, newspapers often directly attribute responsibility for economic problems based on partisan preferences.

If differences between newspaper and TV news are present, newspaper news consumers will show more complex results regarding sociotropic voting. This study argues that, unlike sociotropic voting, the conditional effects of media exposure on pocketbook voting are minimal or absent. Figure 3 illustrates the conditional effects of TV news exposure on pocketbook economic voting. The top panel in the figure shows that the marginal effects of pocketbook evaluations tend to increase as the level of television news exposure increases.

However, the effects are statistically insignificant. In other words, watching TV news did not significantly influence pocketbook voting in the election.

Similar patterns were observed in the election. In sum, the simulation results in the figure show that TV news exposure does not condition pocketbook voting. Figure 3 reports the conditional effects of newspaper exposure on pocketbook voting. The results in this figure are similar to the results in the previous figures.

According to the results in the top panel, the marginal effects of pocketbook evaluations increase as the level of newspaper news consumption increases. However, the effects are insignificant regardless of the level of newspaper exposure.

The bottom panel shows that the marginal effects of pocketbook evaluations do not change according to the level of newspaper exposure. In addition, the effects are statistically insignificant. As with the election, in sum, reading newspapers did not condition the effects of pocketbook evaluations on vote choice in the election. The results in Figure 3 and Figure 4 support the argument that news media exposure is not a critical variable explaining pocketbook economic voting.

The simulation results are somewhat comparable with the results produced by Mutz She found that the effects of personal concerns on presidential evaluations did not vary according to the level of media use in general. One of the main purposes of this study is to examine the conditional effects of media use on economic voting. I argue that news consumption significantly affects sociotropic economic voting but not pocketbook voting.

During electoral campaigns, presidential candidates and the news media generally focus on national economic conditions and the connections between government policies and those national economic conditions. If voters frequently consume news, they are more likely to perceive government responsibility for the national economy and cast their ballots according to their sociotropic evaluations. The statistical simulation results in this study support the argument, at least in part.

According to the regression results, voters who more frequently exposed themselves to television news tend to vote for candidates according to their sociotropic evaluations.

The findings imply that the effects of the news media and electoral campaigns vary across individuals Hillygus and Jackman ; Iyengar and Kinder Prior research Mutz ; Weatherford has revealed that the news media condition political evaluations, which is consistent with the empirical evidence in this study. However, unlike the effects of TV news, the effects of newspaper exposure on sociotropic voting are inconsistent across elections.

These results are somewhat unexpected. Prior research Graber ; Iyengar has argued that print media generally provide more interpretive information than electronic media. This implies that print media have more room to frame news. The empirical results do not provide evidence that heavy newspaper consumers are consistently more or less sociotropic than lighter users.

If newspapers tend to interpret economic issues in general, how newspapers cover economic issues will matter for sociotropic voting. While covering economic conditions, newspapers can focus more on the responsibility of government for the national economy. In contrast, newspapers can downplay the connections between economic policies and national economic conditions. Then, the effects of news consumption on sociotropic voting may vary across elections. Compared to newspapers, TV news more directly covers national economic conditions.

News of the national economy itself can prime a certain standard of evaluating candidates, which can facilitate sociotropic voting. Hence, the effects of television news exposure on sociotropic voting may show more consistent patterns across elections. It may be suggested that the characteristics of news consumers can explain these mixed results. Newspaper readers may have different characteristics compared to TV news viewers.

For instance, the level of political knowledge and education might vary systematically across these two groups. This study examined this possibility using the data and methods employed in the previous analyses. However, the results did not show significant and consistent conditional effects of political knowledge and education on economic voting.

The results showed that media consumption, rather than other characteristics, was a critical variable conditioning sociotropic voting. Unlike the effects of media use on sociotropic voting, this study contends that the effects of news consumption on pocketbook voting are absent, and the interaction results support this argument.

According to Mutz , pocketbook evaluations can affect presidential evaluations when voters expose themselves to the news media and the news media produce a lot of news about national economic conditions. The insignificant conditional effects of media exposure on pocketbook voting could have resulted from the amount of economic news disseminated during the elections.

However, the national economy was one of the major issues in both elections, and the regression results showed that voters cared about economic conditions. Rather than the amount of information voters received, the insignificant effects could be associated with the fact that the news media generally made news of the national economy during campaigns and tried to explain national economic conditions as the result of economic policies.

Hence, news consumption did not significantly influence pocketbook economic voting. Search for. Articles Authors Reviewers About the Journal. Title Author Keyword Volume Vol. Han Soo Lee [Bio-Data]. In particular, this paper explores what factors condition economic voting and argues that news consumption positively conditions sociotropic voting. In order to test the hypothesis, this research analyzes individual vote choice in the and U.

However, news media exposure does not condition pocketbook voting. Keywords : economic voting, sociotropic voting, pocketbook voting, media exposure, media effects, campaign effects, political communication. Newspaper News Consumption and Pocketbook Voting. Economic Voting in the and U. Presidential Elections Table. Media Exposure and Economic Voting in U. Presidential Elections. The results were inconsistent and varied across different elections.

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