White Paper on Televised Political Campaign Debates

Abstract

This White Paper is a collaborative effort sponsored by the Publication Committee of the American Forensic Association and the Research Board of the National Communication Association. The paper is intended to survey existing research on televised campaign debates, indicate areas for future research, consider the resources needed to expand and improve current research efforts, and encourage more systematic and sustained inquiry. The report summarizes existing research conducted about televised campaign debates in respect to format, the nature and number of participants, contexts, the utterances of the candidates, the style of presentation, media coverage, and diffusion. It highlights four questions that should help direct future research: (1) How do debates achieve their effects? (2) What are the characteristic of the best debates? (3) How can we optimize the potential of the debates? (4) How can we best study the debates? The paper also notes two compelling needs in terms of resources: an archive containing comprehensive records of media coverage of the debates and a longitudinal dataset on citizens' responses to debates.