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- Title
- A Content Analysis of State Political Party Newspapers.
- Creator
- Jednak, Robert Eddy, Huckshorn, Robert J., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Political Science
- Abstract/Description
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The history of the development of the party newspapers is reviewed in the first chapter. The goal of the research was to attempt to discover the uses and goals of state political party newspapers. Five propositions were proposed which would accomplish this aim. The first proposition was to discover the extent to which the state party paper is used to extend the publicity of the state chairman. The second proposition was to discover to what extent the party newspaper is used as a tool in...
Show moreThe history of the development of the party newspapers is reviewed in the first chapter. The goal of the research was to attempt to discover the uses and goals of state political party newspapers. Five propositions were proposed which would accomplish this aim. The first proposition was to discover the extent to which the state party paper is used to extend the publicity of the state chairman. The second proposition was to discover to what extent the party newspaper is used as a tool in finance and fund-raising appeals. The third proposition attempted to reveal to what extent the state paper is used to extend the publicity of the incumbent governor. Proposition IV sought to ascertain whether or not a party not holding the governor's office openly criticized the state opposition party, while the incumbent party merely spoke of its own accomplishments while neglecting the opposition. The fifth, and final, proposition attempted to ascertain whether less populous state Republican party papers were more apt to relate themselves to the national Republican party and administration. The research method of content analysis was discussed and the methodology used in this study was explained. The scores for nine content categories were compiled and the findings from a one-issue analysis of sixty-two papers confirmed Propositions I-IV. The fifth proposition was disproven. A time analysis of six selected papers was performed and these findings confirmed the findings of the one-issue analysis. Furthermore, this analysis proved the existence of patterns of column-inch space allocations in a state party newspaper.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1970
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00012589
- Subject Headings
- Political parties--United States, Newspapers
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Party Competition as a Function of Demographic Variables.
- Creator
- Corbett, A. M., Huckshorn, Robert J., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Political Science
- Abstract/Description
-
The general hypothesis is that variation in party competition can be accounted for in terms of socio-economic diversity. Since this general hypothesis is not amenable to direct testing, eleven lowerlevel hypotheses concerning the relationship between party competition and variation in socio-economic structure were used. The county was the unit of analysis. Party competition was measured for two levelsthe presidential and the gubernatorial--for each county. Party competition was defined at...
Show moreThe general hypothesis is that variation in party competition can be accounted for in terms of socio-economic diversity. Since this general hypothesis is not amenable to direct testing, eleven lowerlevel hypotheses concerning the relationship between party competition and variation in socio-economic structure were used. The county was the unit of analysis. Party competition was measured for two levelsthe presidential and the gubernatorial--for each county. Party competition was defined at each level in teras of the percentage of the vote which a county gave to the candidate who failed to carry the county. For the presidential levelf an average was taken for the 1956 and 1960 elections. Por the gubernatorial level, an average was taken for the elections between 1956 and 1960. The higher is the average, the higher is party competition for the county. Measured thusly, party competition was predicted to vary directly with: (1) per cent urban; (2) median income for the county; (3) median number of years of education of those twenty-five years of age or older; (4) the degree of income variation for the county; (5) the degree of variation in number of years of school completed by those twenty-five years of age or older in the county; (6) the degree of dispersion among the major occupational categories within the county; (7) population density per square mile; (8) the per cent of the labor force engaged in white-collar occupations; (9) the per cent Negro of the county population. Party competition was predicted to vary inversely with (l) the extent to which urbanism in a county deviated from fifty per cent ; and , (2) the extent to which the per cent employed in white-collar occupations deviated from fifty per cent. Multiple correlation and regression analysiB was used to teat the hypotheses. A selected sample was used, consisting of the counties of two sets of states. The Homogeneous Set consisted of the counties of Maine, New Hampshire, Wyoming, and North Dakota. The Heterogeneous Set consisted of the counties of New Jersey and Ohio. Also, these two sets were combined to form a Combined Set. The multiple correlation coefficients indicated that party competition could be accounted for in terms of socio-economic diversity to a significant degree at the presidential level but not at the gubernatorial level for each of the sets. However, many of the relationships were not in the predicted direction, indicating that party competition will not necessarily increase with all types of socio-economic diversity. A surprising finding was that the relationships between party competition and the independent variables were often reversed for the two ballot levels . It was suggested that perhaps two party systems are operating in these states at the different ballot levels. The most consistent finding was the negative relationship-contrary to the predicted positive relationship--between party competition and the median educational level of a county. Several others of the independent variables were found to have some tmportance, but there were many inconsistencies in the findings between the ballot levels and, to a lesser extent, between the sets of counties. The results auagest that the simple linear model which vas used might need complicating; the relationships may be more complex than can be accommodated by a linear model.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1968
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00012585
- Subject Headings
- Political parties--United States, Geopolitics, Demography--United States
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Party Platforms: The Measurement of a Dualism in a Moving Consensus.
- Creator
- Elliott, Eric E., Huckshorn, Robert J., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Political Science
- Abstract/Description
-
The theory of a dualism in a moving consensus, as a covariance in the party's outlook on major governmental issues, is explained in the introduction of the paper. It is illustrated by the most noteworthy example, the convergence in attitudes of both parties on the importance of governmental aid in economic And social areas after the Great Depression. The importance of developing parallel examples of interparty dualism on other issues is presented as the goal of the paper. The utility of the...
Show moreThe theory of a dualism in a moving consensus, as a covariance in the party's outlook on major governmental issues, is explained in the introduction of the paper. It is illustrated by the most noteworthy example, the convergence in attitudes of both parties on the importance of governmental aid in economic And social areas after the Great Depression. The importance of developing parallel examples of interparty dualism on other issues is presented as the goal of the paper. The utility of the party platforms as the most suitable continuous documents available for the measurement of issue covariance is supported by a brief description of their historical background and the political processes involved in their completion . It is proposed that with the party leadership determining the process of their adoption, they are the best indicators of party attitude on major issues. Three platform hypotheses are presented to test the dualism theory. The first hypothesis tests the covariance of subject matter which each party develops in the major issue areas of the platforms, to prove that they are in agreement on the importance of the same problems. The test of the second hypothesis requires the proof of a similar covariance of attitude toward these issues. The third hypothesis is a test to eliminate the factor of being in or out of power as the prime determinant of a party's attitude toward major issues, rather than the dualism in a moving consensus which slowly changes a party's outlook. The background and methodology of content analysis is developed to show its application to the first hypothesis. The coding of the units of content on six major issue areas and their subsequent statistical correlation validated this hypothesis on the covariance of subject matter in the platform8. The technique of the Q-sort is explained as a measurement of party attitudes on the issues of Big Government and Interventionism. Correlation of Q-sort data from both parties on these issues did not support the second hypothesis. The data failed to show a dualism in party attitude similar to that found in subject matter. When the third hypothesis was tested by Q-sorting it was rejected because it indicated that a covariation of attitude toward the two issues is correlated with the parties' change in control of the presidency. It is therefore concluded that the theory of a dualism in a moving consensus does not extend itself to cover the issues tested . Instead it was indicated that the condition of being in or out of power is the main fa ctor in the formation of party attitude on the issues.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1968
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00012586
- Subject Headings
- Political parties--United States, Popular fronts, Political psychology
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The Analysis of Variance in Party Loyalty: The Eighty-seventh Congress.
- Creator
- Lane, Cecil C., Huckshorn, Robert J., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Political Science
- Abstract/Description
-
This is a study of the impact of constituency pressures on the United States House of Representatives in the Eighty-seventh Congress. It is an attempt to measure by quantitative methods the relative effectiveness of pressures on congress from the various types of constituencies normaily associated with one party or another. Political pressure is defined here as a force which brings about distinctive patterns of voting behavior on the part of the representatives. whether the force is applied...
Show moreThis is a study of the impact of constituency pressures on the United States House of Representatives in the Eighty-seventh Congress. It is an attempt to measure by quantitative methods the relative effectiveness of pressures on congress from the various types of constituencies normaily associated with one party or another. Political pressure is defined here as a force which brings about distinctive patterns of voting behavior on the part of the representatives. whether the force is applied through conventional forms of coercion or through the appeal of loyalties and ideologies. The two sources of pressure which are the major concern of this research are the representative's party affiliation and his constituency. The former is held constant while the latter is permitted to vary in order to observe more closely the differing impact of certain constituency pressures on members of the Democratic and Republican parties. The dependent variable in this study is party loyalty which is the per cent of the times a congressman voted with his party on a set of one hundred and fifteen party unity roll-calls. These roll-calls are those on which a majority of one party opposes a majority of the other party. The independent variables are gross measures of broad demographic, socio-economic, and political characteristics of congressional districts. The theory is that these factors reflect significant differences between the Democrats and Republicans with regard to electoral centers of support. Consequently, it is hypothesized that variations in a congressman's constituency would be related to variations in legislative voting behavior as measured by party unity roll-calls . The step-wise multiple regression technique is the means of testing the major proposal. It indicates that a proportion of the variance in party loyalty can be explained by variation in constituency. But the proportion explained for the Democrats (34.7%) is much greater than that for the Republicans (11. 8%). The threshold concept is proposed as an explanation for this. It is also suggested that new research is needed to clarify the types of constituencies most likely to associate with the two major parties. Thus, the theory that constituency pressures can explain, to some extent, legislative voting behavior has been tentatively validated. However, the findings indicate that a more complex, multi-variate, theory of legislative behavior is needed before accurate predictions can be made. Therefore, the constituency model must be expanded to include other factors such as psychological and institutional ones.
Show less - Date Issued
- 1969
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00012590
- Subject Headings
- Political parties--United States, Party discipline
- Format
- Document (PDF)
