Campaign activities and electoral outcomes in britain 1979 and 1983

Political broadcasting through the electronic media has largely displaced two older methods of influencing voters-canvassing and advertising in the press-as the dominant party campaign activity during elections. This article utilizes survey data collected during the 1979 and 1983 British general elections to estimate the reported effects of these three types of campaign activity on electoral outcomes. The results show that few voters report being influenced by canvassing and advertising, and the net effect on the vote is either small or nonexistent. By contrast, around 1 in 6 report being influenced by a party political broadcast, and those most influenced are eventual Liberal-Alliance voters. The net electoral effect of political broadcasting can range as high as 3.4 percent, but gains for the Conservatives and Labour are offset by the political broadcasting of competitors. The main exceptions are the Liberals in 1979 and the Alliance in 1983, who made a net gain of 1.5 percent and 3.3 percent of the vote, respectively.