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Hscs/335 Research Paper

Decent Essays

Thomas Johnston
POSC 335 Term Paper
Fall 2017
Professor Grose

Introduction For my novel experiment relating to campaigns and elections, I have decided to conduct an experiment to test the effects of spanish-spoken political campaign advertisements on self-identified Hispanic and Latino citizens. Research has shown that Hispanic participation in elections lаgs behind that of non-Hispаnic groups in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, In 2008, 54 percent of Hispаnic citizens registered to vote in the 2006 midterm elections, compаred to 71 percent of non Hispаnic whites. Although raciаlly polarized politics (such as an election like Trump vs Clinton in 2016) or elections with competitive Lаtino cаndidates on the ballot …show more content…

This outreach may serve an important symbolic function, showing potential Hispanic voters that politicians acknowledge their growing prominence in the U.S. electorate. (Abrajano 2010). Guernica (1982) contends that “U.S. Hispanics are most receptive to media content in the Spanish language. Spanish programming elicits an emotional response from the Hispanic audience that is missing in English-language media.” In my experiment, I will test that claim.

Relevant work in Political Science There are a couple of past works in Political Science that are relevant to my experiment. About a decade ago, Costas Panagopoulos and Donald P. Green conducted a large-scale, national field experiment to test the impact of Spanish-language radio advertisements on Latino voter turnout in the 2006 congressional elections. They randomly assigned congressional districts to receive radio ads in Spanish and measured the likelihood of Hispanic voters in those districts to vote in congressional elections. In congressional districts where the ads were played, Hispanics were 4.2% more likely to vote than in randomly selected districts where the ads were not played. They concluded that “Spanish-language radio advertisements can have a profound effect on Latino voter turnout.”

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