The Triple Agenda of Presidential Debates

Abstract

The authors find little support for the view that televised presidential debates address the public's primary political concerns. Though candidates speak directly to the public, and the public is represented by journalists who question the candidates, the research suggests that never the “three shall meet.” Based on (I) content analysisof the Brst 1960 and 1976 presidential debates and (2) secondary analysis of survey data (Gallup and CPS), candidates, journalists, and public appear to have their own separate issue agendas. Survey data in this paper were made available by the Roper Center and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, via the University of PennsylvaniaSocialScience Data Center. Data for 1976 were originally collected by the Center for Political Studies of the Institute for Social Research, the University of Michigan, under a grant from the National Science Foundation. Neither the originalcollectors of the data nor the Consortium bear any responsibility for the analyses and interpretations presented here.