Media Effects on Voters’ Political Attention, Preference, and Judgment
25
Table 5. Media’s Candidate Attribute Agendas about personal qualifications and
Character and Voters’ Criteria for Candidate Evaluation
Candidate Morales Sanchez Perry
Personal qualifications and character
AAS
Voters
ASS
Voters
ASS
Voters
(Attribute)
Leadership 2.7 .0 3.9 9.1 6.1 10.0
Experience/Competence 67.1 30.0 42.8 18.2 57.6 20.0
Credibility/Morality 21.9 55.0 51.9 63.6 24.2 70.0
Caring People 2.7 10.0 1.3 9.1 3.0 .0
Communication Skills 5.5 5.0 .0 .0 9.1 .0
Total number of attributes 73 20 77 11 33 30
Note. The percentage figures are based on the total number of the candidate attributes about personal
qualifications and character in 67 news items from The Austin American-Statesmen (ASS) from Jan. 1 to Mar.
12, 2002, and the number of voters’ answers to the question about the criteria for candidate evaluation.
Table 6. Correlations of Media’s Candidate Attribute Agendas about Personal
Qualifications and Character with Voters’ Criteria for Candidate Evaluation
Candidate Morales
Sanchez
Perry
.720 .975* .720
Note. The Spearman correlation coefficients (two-tailed) are based on the rank orders among the five
candidate attributes about personal qualifications and characters between the campaign coverage in The
Austin American-Statesmen and the voters’ answers to the question about the criteria for candidate evaluation.
* p<.01.
Convention