Two questions are commonly asked after televised election debates have taken place. The first is “who won?” This is the favourite question of journalists, pollsters and spin doctors. It is rooted in a conception of politics as battle, all the more exciting when there are metaphorical blood stains left on the TV studio wall.
“Who won” evaluations focus on knockout blows, smart, pithy, memorable one-liners, gaffes and flash-poll verdicts. Behind the question is an assumption that a one-hour televised exchange of views might rewrite the electoral odds. Excitable party activists run around the press room during and immediately after the debate claiming that their leader stole the show. In truth, most studies of televised leaders’ debates around the world have reported that they rarely change viewers’ settled preferences.
A second question concerns the democratic value of the debates. Did viewers become better informed about the political choices before them? This question relates to how successfully the key issues were set out and addressed in the debate and whether the principles and policies separating the parties – as well as the qualities and defects of would-be future national leaders – were made apparent during the course of broadcast.
