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Dear MeCCSA members, I'm writing to let you know about a recent study of mine that I think may be of interest to readers of this list (see abstract below). The study, published in the open access journal PLoS One, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018154 , investigated whether the "worm" graph that is often broadcast with televised election debates has an influence on the opinions of viewers. To do this, we conducted an experiment in which we superimposed our own worms over a live broadcast of the final 2010 UK election debate. Our results showed that the worm has a very large influence on viewers' opinions about the debate winner and their preferred choice of prime minister. We believe that these findings have important implications for policy concerning media coverage of debates. Best wishes, Colin Colin Davis Professor of Cognitive Science, Department of Psychology Royal Holloway University of London Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX A recent innovation in televised election debates is a continuous response measure (commonly referred to as the “worm”) that allows viewers to track the response of a sample of undecided voters in real-time. A potential danger of presenting such data is that it may prevent people from making independent evaluations. We report an experiment with 150 participants in which we manipulated the worm and superimposed it on a live broadcast of a UK election debate. The majority of viewers were unaware that the worm had been manipulated, and yet we were able to influence their perception of who won the debate, their choice of preferred prime minister, and their voting intentions. We argue that there is an urgent need to reconsider the simultaneous broadcast of average response data with televised election debates. -------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA mailing list -------------------------------------------------------- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1 ------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. Membership is open to all who teach and research these subjects in HE institutions, via either institutional or individual membership. The field includes film and TV production, journalism, radio, photography, creative writing, publishing, interactive media and the web; and it includes higher education for media practice as well as for media studies. This mailing list is a free service from MeCCSA and is not restricted to members. For further information, please visit: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/ --------------------------------------------------------