Debate provides a unique opportunity for candidates to sharpen their views on the issues facing our nation in a nonpartisan forum. It gives voters a chance to make side-by-side comparisons of the different candidates’ positions and records. It helps voters decide which candidate is best suited to lead. And it promotes civic engagement by introducing voters to candidates and issues that may not be as well known or understood.
But political debate can also be frustrating, especially in this era of heightened polarization. Many people feel that the mere act of two individuals with different points of view trying to find consensus through dialogue is unproductive – and a waste of their time.
Heightened partisanship and misperceptions about the frequency and format of presidential debates have left many Americans frustrated and disengaged from the election process. In a recent article, Modupe Akinola (Columbia Business School) and Sheena Iyengar (University of California, Berkeley) explored the impact of this misperception on debates.
They found that when participants believed they were watching a more productive debate, they actually did become more engaged and positive about the election. The researchers’ study suggests that the way we design debates can shape how we feel about them, and that this might have long-term implications for how Americans engage in politics.
There are several established formats for debates. In the moderator format, a single person (or sometimes two) asks the questions and directs the responses of the candidates. The panelist format replaces a single moderator with multiple people, and the town hall meeting format invites members of the public to ask questions. Each question is typically given 2 minutes for discussion. A moderator can add a limit on the total number of seconds each candidate can talk, and can use colors resembling traffic lights to alert the candidates when their time is up: green indicating 30 seconds left, yellow indicating 15 seconds left, and red indicating only 5 seconds are remaining.
About the Author
