“An Experimental Approach to Measuring Ideological Positions in Political Text: Extensions and Applications” with John Henderson, Yale

AMERICAN POLITICS & PUBLIC POLICY WORKSHOP

Abstract: Though powerful as general tools, automated measures of position-taking in text often perform poorly when models of speech are difficult to develop or theoretically contested. Rather than model text, I develop an experimental approach to measure perceptions of partisanship in speech, with an application to 2008 Congressional advertisements. I randomly assign ads to subjects recruited in a large-N survey, and ask them to ‘guess’ the party of featured candidates, with ads scored as their average party inference. These party perception scores are empirically synonymous with a liberal-conservative dimension, and highly reliable across samples and experimental conditions. Party identity has little impact on guesses, indicating the inferential task significantly mutes partisan bias. For validation, I assess which words influence guessing, and whether ad-scores correspond to expectations about how candidates target voters. This experimental approach can augment or validate automated text analysis, and generalize to study speech across many other contexts. I explore a number of extensions and applications here.

Speaker: John Henderson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University. His research focuses primarily on the consequences of polarization on representation and policymaking in the U.S., as well as on the evolution of campaign communication strategies in congressional elections, and the effects these strategies have on voter information and choice.