This dissertation explores how institutional settings regulating the media and campaigns
affect voter participation. The broader question is what types of political communication
systems are likely to produce the most engaged and participatory citizens as well as equal
participation. Assuming that political participation is affected by its underlying costs and
benefits, I hypothesize that political communication systems that lower information costs
for voters have higher turnout levels and reduce upper class bias. Political
communication systems are measured by media systems, access to paid TV advertising,
and campaign finance laws. In the country-level turnout models, investigating seventy-four
electoral democracies, I find that public broadcasting systems increase voter turnout,
while changing the effect of paid advertising. Public broadcasting systems that allow paid
TV advertising have a higher turnout levels than those that ban paid advertising. Conversely,
paid advertising in private broadcasting systems have a negative marginal effect on voter
turnout. On the other hand, campaign finance laws that allow more money to enter
election campaigns increase voter participation. So campaign contribution and spending
limits depress turnout and public finance increases it. The hierarchical models in Chapter
6 show that political communication systems also change the relationship between
individual socioeconomic status and voter participation. Generally political
communication environment that lower information costs for voters reduces socioeconomic bias for voters. Public broadcasting systems, access to paid TV ads, and
free TV time, thus, mitigate the effect of education on voting. Additional investigation
also shows that the age gap between voters and nonvoters is conditioned by different
types of political communication systems. Both partisan press and public direct funding
promote younger citizens’ participation, thus decreasing the generation gap. In contrast,
campaign contribution/expenditure limits enlarge such gap. Broadcasting systems also
affect the effect of age on voting. Because older people spend more time watching
television than younger ones, the type of broadcasting system has a disproportionately larger impact on older citizens. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/6526 |
| Date | 14 October 2009 |
| Creators | Baek, Mijeong |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works. |
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