A Normative Assessment of 2016 Political Convention Speech Exposure: Perceived Political Threats and Anticipated General Election Legitimacy

Abstract

Political party conventions, rivaled only by general election debates, are media events that can affect democratic processes through their ability to reach a wide audience. Conventions hold a unique place in the American electoral system by serving as a pivot point between the nation’s primary and general election phases. From a normative perspective, the current study focuses on the degree to which consuming major political party convention speeches mitigates negative perceptions generated from the primaries on what citizens are anticipating for the general election. A national pre–post conventions panel survey of U.S. adults ( N = 562) is utilized to address five hypotheses. The consumption of more convention speeches reduces the negative impact of perceived primary election threat on the anticipated legitimacy of the general election (i.e., positive normative effect), but also increases threat ambivalence associated with the conventions (i.e., negative normative effect). In addition, convention speech exposure generates a strong, positive direct effect on perceived general election legitimacy (i.e., positive normative effect). When judged from the standpoint of republicanism as a type of democratic theory, the positive influences of convention speech exposure outweigh this activity’s negative effects.