TY - JOUR
T1 - The Power of Television Images in a Social Media Age
T2 - Linking Biobehavioral and Computational Approaches via the Second Screen
AU - Shah, Dhavan V.
AU - Hanna, Alex
AU - Bucy, Erik P.
AU - Wells, Chris
AU - Quevedo, Vidal
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 by The American Academy of Political and Social Science
Copyright:
Copyright 2015 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/5/15
Y1 - 2015/5/15
N2 - There is considerable controversy surrounding the study of presidential debates, particularly efforts to connect their content and impact. Research has long debated whether the citizenry reacts to what candidates say, how they say it, or simply how they appear. This study uses detailed coding of the first 2012 debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to test the relative influence of the candidates’ verbal persuasiveness and nonverbal features on viewers’ “second screen” behavior—their use of computers, tablets, and mobile phones to enhance or extend the televised viewing experience. To examine these relationships, we merged two datasets: (1) a shot-by-shot content analysis coded for functional, tonal, and visual elements of both candidates’ communication behavior during the debate; and (2) corresponding real-time measures, synched and lagged, of the volume and sentiment of Twitter expression about Obama and Romney. We find the candidates’ facial expressions and physical gestures to be more consistent and robust predictors of the volume and valence of Twitter expression than candidates’ persuasive strategies, verbal utterances, and voice tone during the debate.
AB - There is considerable controversy surrounding the study of presidential debates, particularly efforts to connect their content and impact. Research has long debated whether the citizenry reacts to what candidates say, how they say it, or simply how they appear. This study uses detailed coding of the first 2012 debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to test the relative influence of the candidates’ verbal persuasiveness and nonverbal features on viewers’ “second screen” behavior—their use of computers, tablets, and mobile phones to enhance or extend the televised viewing experience. To examine these relationships, we merged two datasets: (1) a shot-by-shot content analysis coded for functional, tonal, and visual elements of both candidates’ communication behavior during the debate; and (2) corresponding real-time measures, synched and lagged, of the volume and sentiment of Twitter expression about Obama and Romney. We find the candidates’ facial expressions and physical gestures to be more consistent and robust predictors of the volume and valence of Twitter expression than candidates’ persuasive strategies, verbal utterances, and voice tone during the debate.
KW - 2012 presidential debate
KW - Twitter
KW - computational communication science
KW - machine learning
KW - nonverbal behaviors
KW - political performance
KW - sentiment analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84927132183&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0002716215569220
DO - 10.1177/0002716215569220
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84927132183
VL - 659
SP - 225
EP - 245
JO - Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
JF - Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
SN - 0002-7162
IS - 1
ER -