Campaign Communication and Attitude Change: A Multidimensional Analysis

The processes by which political attitude changes occur have been examined extensively from a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives. In this study, the authors attempt to extend the traditional balance formulation to a continuously-scaled least-squares paradigm in which change occurs as a function of accumulated information. A longitudinal tracking of the changes in attitude toward parties, candidates, and issues is used to make predictions about subsequent attitudes and consequent voting behavior. Possible communicative influences from a political campaign are explored with regard to their impact on changes in concept relations. Analysis of political changes hypotheses and a critical examination of the methodology are used as the basis for suggesting improvements in campaign communication research.