Browsing by Subject "campaigns"
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Item Scared Textless: The Influence of Sensation Seeking Tendencies and Need for Cognition on Texting while Driving Fear Appeals(2012-10-19) Boenker, Madeline LeeTexting is ubiquitous; the International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry reported that 4.1 billion text messages were sent per day in the first half of 2009. In isolation, texting does not injure individuals; however, when combined with driving, lives have changed for the worse. The National Safety Council estimates that 1.6 million crashes per year can be attributed to distracted drivers either talking on cell phones or texting while driving and nearly 28 percent of all crashes in the United States can be ascribed to these behaviors. An increasing number of texting while driving fear appeal campaigns are being utilized in the media. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to create and test theoretically-based messages aimed at discouraging texting while driving. Formative research along with the Extended Parallel Process Model was used for guidance in the creation of the fear appeal messages. No low threat message was used for the main study after repeated message validations failed. For the study, three high threat messages varied only by a single paragraph which targeted beliefs about benefits, mastery, and ubiquity of texting while driving. 155 undergraduates at Texas A & M University completed a pretest, read the high threat message, and answered a posttest. Need for cognition and sensation seeking tendencies were measured in order to understand the effects such personality traits have on message perceptions. Five major outcomes were revealed even though numerous hypotheses were unsupported. There was a significant interaction between perceived threat and sensation seeking tendencies on message realism. There was a significant interaction between perceived threat and need for cognition on message realism. There was a significant interaction between perceived threat and need for cognition on message accuracy. There was a significant interaction between perceived threat and need for cognition on attitudes. There was a significant positive correlation between perceived threat and perceived message sensation value. This project provides support that sensation seeking tendencies and need for cognition do interacted with perceived threat on perceptions of message effectiveness and that perceived message sensation value was positively related to perceived threat. Results also revealed the prevalence of texting while driving behavior and relationships between personality traits and texting while driving. Sensation seeking tendencies were positively correlated with initiating text messages while driving. Need for cognition was negatively correlated with reading and replying to text messages while driving.Item Struggling to set the campaign agenda: candidates, the media, and interest groups in elections(Texas A&M University, 2005-02-17) Campbell, Kristin LynnDemocracy is best described as a struggle over competing ideals and values. One of the most important places where this struggle takes place is in the electoral arena. My dissertation examines the struggle between candidates and their respective messages in this arena. Focusing on fourteen Senate races from 1998 and 2000, I examine, in depth, how the struggle over competing ideals takes place (or in some cases, does not take place) and whether some candidates are more successful than others at navigating their message through the political environment to voters. This study examines the impact of candidate skills and resources as well as state characteristics on the strategies candidates employ when emphasizing campaign issues. In addition, my dissertation focuses on the impact interest group advertising has on the candidates? campaign dialogue and analyzes media coverage in Senate races by comparing each candidate?s core message to the campaign information transmitted by the media to voters. The analysis presented here reveals that candidates employ both multi-dimensional and unidimensional strategies. State party competition appears to offer the most plausible explanation for the variation in strategy across the states. Competition, rather than encouraging a multi-dimensional campaign strategy, appears to promote convergence towards the median voter and a unidimensional strategy. Furthermore, this study suggests that candidates face a number of obstacles in trying to transmit their campaign message to voters. In addition to struggling against their opponent, candidates have to struggle against both interest groups and the media to get their message to the electorate. Just under one-half of the advertisements interest groups ran were successful at interjecting issues into the campaign debate. Furthermore, in over seventy percent of the Senate races included in this study, the media emphasized issues other than what the candidates were focusing on. While this may have the positive benefit of infusing more issues into the debate, it may also blur the lines of accountability?particularly if candidates have no intention of acting on issues emphasized exclusively by the media.