September/October 2000 | Contents

GETTING VOTERS TO ENGAGE

BY ANDREW KOHUT

Journalists and news executives have every reason to be jittery about the diminishing audience for campaign news. Compared to 1996 and 1992, fewer Americans have been following election news, a smaller number of potential voters have given much thought to the contest, and an increasing percentage say they are less interested in politics, according to nationwide surveys by the Pew Research Center.

To make matters worse, the Summer Olympics may further dilute and divert the public's interest in politics. The Sydney Games are scheduled later than usual and will be broadcast in what should be prime time for election news -- from Sept. 15 to October 1. Here are some recommendations in the uphill battle to engage audiences for election news, based upon the trends that we have observed so far:

Emphasize the stakes. The public's feelings about Al Gore and George W. Bush, combined with the nature of these contented times, are leading many to doubt the significance of the coming presidential election. Nearly one in three registered voters (30 percent) say it does not make much difference who wins the presidency, up from 18 percent in Center surveys conducted in 1992 and 1996. And nearly half of voters believe that "things will pretty much be the same for them" no matter who is elected.

To much of the public, the candidates are virtually indistinguishable. Many Americans say that either candidate would be qualified to serve as president. Fully one-third say Bush and Gore take similar positions on issues -- a larger percentage than felt that way when the campaign began in earnest a year ago (33 percent vs. 24 percent). A small appetite for change is also at work here. A slim plurality (47 percent) think the next president should make major policy changes to solve problems. But nearly as many (41 percent) favor staying the course, even if we make no further progress in certain areas.

Try even harder with younger voters -- and their parents. Americans of all ages are less interested in the current presidential campaign, but the decline is more precipitous among voters under fifty years of age. Only about half of those in this age group are paying close attention to news about this year's presidential campaign, compared to nearly two-thirds of those age fifty and older. The generation gap in attentiveness was not so sharp four years ago. The reason for this may be that many more of those in Generations X and Y -- as well as younger baby boomers -- have greater doubts about the importance of the presidency than do older Americans.

	1992	1996	2000
Follow election news	%	%	%
Very closely	20	22	23
Fairly closely	45	40	32
Not too closely at all	35	37	44
Interest in politics this year
More	55	42	38
Less	24	38	38
Same	19	19	22
Thought given to election*
Quite a lot	63	55	46
Some/Only a little	35	44	49
Registered to vote
Yes	73	75	75
No	26	25	25

Take voters at their word about the importance of issues. News organizations would be wise to emphasize issues because, clearly, these candidates will not electrify audiences. The conventional wisdom holds that voters only say they want to hear about issues, when in reality serious policy debates bore them. While there may be some truth to this, a good debate about one or two issues may be the only way get more voters feeling that the stakes are important and there is a real choice between the candidates. Education, health care, entitlements, taxes, gun control, and the use of force abroad all have the potential to engage certain groups of voters.

Don't go too far in reporting on candidates' personal lives, but cover what's important. While voters remain very gun-shy about revelations of the private lives of candidates, 84 percent say it is very important to know about candidates' reputation for honesty, and 67 percent say the same about understanding their abilities to connect with ordinary people. The trick is to probe into these matters without turning off voters by seeming to be snooping or going for the jugular.

Lay off coverage of strategy and tactics, which bore the marginal audience. Many voters say they want less reporting of campaign strategy (47 percent), and less news about which candidate is ahead in the polls (42 percent). The inside-baseball aspects of campaigns appeal to the tried-and-true political audience, not to people with marginal interest. People with strong political interest and good voting records will be drawn to news about political maneuvering, not those who tune in only once every four years.

In the end, it may turn out there is nothing that news organizations can do to stem erosion of the political news audience -- short of sending Gore and Bush to a desert island and having people vote to banish one or the other. The warning signs abound: Local and network news are cited far less often than four years ago as the leading sources of information about the campaign. Newspapers, radio, and magazines have also seen their political audience decline. Only cable news has held its own, while the Internet has grown, of course.

It is far too early to determine the causes of the electorate's waning interest in the campaign, but this year's front-loaded political campaign and the decision by broadcast networks to cut back election coverage haven't helped. And while news bosses are worried over the bottom-line implications of Americans losing the political news habit, the impact on political participation is more troubling. Judging from the early indicators in the Pew surveys of election interest, we could be headed for one of the lowest voter turnouts in history.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, writes regularly for cjr about public attitudes toward the media.