How Print News Frames Voters and Why it Matters for Young Americans

*  Soo-Hye Han (Univ of Texas, Austin)

*  Sharon E. Jarvis (Univ of Texas, Austin)

Abstract:

Electoral participation is a defining characteristic of a democratic state. To date, however, scholars have yet to track how voters are discussed in the United States and assess the effects of such discussions. This paper is part of a bigger project examining how the words vote(s), voter(s) and voting have been portrayed during presidential contests (1948-2004) and how such portrayals affect citizens' attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, it (1) reviews findings from our content analysis of over 26,000 instances of these terms in election print news coverage, (2) discusses how the framing of voters has changed over time (casting voters as empowered agents in the 1950s-1960s and then as pawns of public opinion polls between the 1970s - present), (3) addresses how such frames are important in light of political socialization research (particularly for our nation's youngest voters), and (4) presents data from an on-line experiment with 18-24 year-olds (in which the effects of the empowered voter frame was compared to opinion poll frame). The findings show that the empowered voter frame increases young voters' intention to vote, sense of civic duty, perceptions of elections as meaningful, information seeking behaviors and media trust. The conclusion addresses these patterns in light of research on the political socialization of young voters and framing techniques of presidential campaigns.