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Does Local Journalism Stimulate Voter Participation in State Supreme Court Elections?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

David Hughes
David Hughes*
Affiliation:
Auburn University at Montgomery
*
Contact the author at david.hughes@aum.edu.
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Abstract

I gather new data on local media coverage of state supreme court elections and examine its effects on voter participation. I find that, even when controlling for campaign expense and advertising, media coverage can increase voter engagement in state supreme court contests. While some of this effect is attributable to salient campaigns themselves, content and statistical analyses show that the media provide voters with unique information such as candidate qualifications that can also stimulate their participation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , Spring 2020 , pp. 95 - 126
Copyright
© 2020 by Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

I gratefully acknowledge the insight provided by Scott Ainsworth, Chris Bonneau, Keith Dougherty, Nick Howard, Billy Monroe, Michael Nelson, Rich Vining, and Teena Wilhelm, along with suggestions from the anonymous reviewers. I thank Melinda Gann Hall for having provided me with valuable advertising data. Finally, I wish to express my thanks to Taylor Baker for his superb research assistance. All remaining errors are my own.

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