When It Comes from the People: The Effects of Reforming Ballot Initiative Explanatory Statements to Accord with Citizens’ Legal Communication Practices
Obstacles to citizens’ understanding of the legal content of ballot measures were thought to lie in inconsistencies between the communicative practices of official summaries of such measures and citizens’ own legal communicative practices. Theory suggested that revising official ballot-measure summaries to include elements of citizens’ legal communicative practices would enhance citizens’ understanding of the legal content of ballot measures, confidence in that understanding, and confidence in their voting decision about such measures, and that intrapersonal reflection would mediate those effects. Those predictions were tested in a controlled experiment. Results showed no evidence of knowledge gains, but subjects exposed to a description of the policy objectives of a ballot measure showed significant increases in voting confidence. A subset of those subjects also experienced significant increases in knowledge confidence. Many findings were consistent with theories of sense-making (Dervin & Frenette, 2001), framing (Scheufele, 1999, 2000), and the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977), and with the prediction that a “means-end” schema operates in citizens’ minds during deliberations about proposed laws.
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When It Comes from the People: The Effects of Reforming Ballot Initiative Explanatory Statements to Accord with Citizens’ Legal Communication Practices
1. WHEN IT COMES FROM THE PEOPLE:
THE EFFECTS OF REFORMING OFFICIAL
BALLOT INITIATIVE SUMMARIES TOACCORD
WITH CITIZENS’ LEGAL COMMUNICATION
PRACTICES
Robert C. Richards, Jr.
The Pennsylvania State University
Department of Communication Arts & Sciences
Presentation at Law and Society Association,
May, 2015
2. Purpose
Test whether revising summaries of
ballot initiatives to match citizens’
communicative practices
increases citizens’
knowledge of legal content of
initiatives
4. Setting
Direct Democracy
• Citizens making their own laws in
ballot-initiative elections
• 24 U.S. states have statewide ballot
initiative processes
10. Approach 1: Describe
Citizens’ Communicative
Practices
Develop coding scheme describing
attributes of citizens’ legal communication
about initiatives
Based on content analysis of transcripts of
Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR)
11. Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review
Public deliberation by
random sample of 24
citizens on ballot
initiative; analysis is
published in official voter
guide
In 2010 two measures:
(1) Mandatory
Minimums, and
(2) Medical Marijuana
Dispensaries
25. Reading an official summary
of an initiative that includes
features of citizens’
communicative practices will
increase citizens’
knowledge of legal
aspects of the initiative
27. Reading an official summary
of an initiative that includes
features of citizens’
communicative practices will
increase citizens’
confidence in their
knowledge and voting
decision about initiative
29. Reflection will mediate
associations between reading
official summary of initiative that
includes features of citizens’
communicative practices, and
knowledge,
confidence, and
voting decision
31. How will reading an official
summary of an initiative that
includes features of citizens’
communicative practices
influence citizens’
voting decision about
the initiative?
80. Text of Paper
Full text of the paper accompanying
this presentation is available at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2612419
81. Acknowledgements
•Grateful thanks to:
• Anonymous reviewers
• Professor James Dillard, Professor John
Gastil, Professor John Graham, Professor
Christopher Zorn, David Brinker, Brett
Wachtendorf, and Sara Castronuova of The
Pennsylvania State University
82. Contact
Robert C. Richards, Jr., JD, MSLIS, MA, BA
• PhD Candidate
• The Pennsylvania State University Department of Communication
Arts and Sciences
• Email: rcr5122@psu.edu
• Web: http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/about/about-the-author/