When the Stakes Are High

Abstract

The internet is changing the way Americans engage with information, whether they are choosing a president or making health care decisions. Two major drivers for this change are broadband adoption and personal motivation. First, an update: The Pew Internet Project estimates that between 75% and 80% of internet users have looked online for health information. We get slightly different results for the size of the e-patient population depending on our survey strategy, but these results are close enough to make us confident we have the right contours of this group. Our estimate is also in line with Harris Interactive's latest data on health information seekers (81% of internet users; 66% of all adults). We got the 75% reading in our October-December 2007 national phone survey, which included 2,054 adults ages 18 and older, including 500 cell phone users. In this survey we asked: "Do you ever use the internet to look for health or medical information?" In surveys we conducted between 2003-2007 (and plan to repeat in coming months), respondents were prompted with questions about specific health topics, such as diet, drugs or alternative treatments, yielding a consistently higher estimate (80%) for the percentage of internet users who seek health information online in

Attack politics from Albania to Zimbabwe: A large-scale comparative study on the drivers of negative campaigning

“…Assuming that political disagreements may lead to rhetorical attacks, we expect that the ideologically extreme are more negative in their campaigns than mainstream candidates. Results of previous studies do indeed suggest that parties far from the ideological centre are more inclined to go negative (Elmelund-Praestekaer, 2010;Walter et al, 2014). This logic leads to the following hypothesis: H3: Extreme candidates are more likely to use negativity than mainstream candidates.…”

“…Outside this case, existing evidence is either on specific countries – such as Brazil ( da Silveira and de Mello, 2011 ) or Germany ( Maier and Jansen, 2015 ) – or, if comparative, often limited to only a handful of countries (e.g. Walter et al, 2014 ). A recent study ( Nai, 2018 ) compared the use of negative campaigning by candidates who competed in 35 national elections worldwide, but mostly focused on differences among the sponsors and the targets of the attacks, and only addressed the issue of cross-country comparison marginally.…”

“…Second, in multiparty PR systems, competing parties and candidates have enhanced incentives for cooperative behaviour, due to the possibility of coalition bargaining (e.g. Elmelund-Præstekær, 2010 ; Walter et al, 2014 ). This assumption has been addressed by Lijphart (1999) , who claimed that PR systems tend to have a stronger community orientation and social consciousness and, thus, stand in contrast to self-interest and power politics.…”

Becoming part of the gang? Established and nonestablished populist parties and the role of external efficacy

“…In this regard, studies showed that the relevance of negative campaigning varied with party characteristics. Especially opposition parties, parties that lose in the polls, parties with less coalition potential and those with less government experience are more likely to “go negative.” Conversely, negative campaigning is unusual for parties with governmental experience, with electoral fortune, and a positive coalition outlook, that is, established parties (Elmelund-Præstekær, 2010; Walter et al, 2014). Populist parties in particular seem to tend to engage in negative campaigning (Nai, 2018), although to a lesser degree when they see potential for future cooperation with certain mainstream parties or when they are in power (van Kessel and Castelein, 2016).…”

Are candidates rational when it comes to negative campaigning? Empirical evidence from three German candidate surveys

“…Second, research in multiparty systems indicates that more ideologically extreme candidates attack more often than politically moderate actors (e.g., Elmelund-Præstekær 2010; Maier and Nai, 2021). The rational choice rationale is that extreme actors have a lower coalition potential, that is, are less likely to be considered for future coalition formation (Walter et al 2014). Therefore, they do not have to demonstrate that they are a congenial or compliant partner (Nai and Walter 2015) and thus are willing to take more risks.…”