When It Comes from the People: The Effects of Reforming Ballot Initiative Explanatory Statements to Accord with Citizens’ Legal Communication Practices
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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
- 6. Issue Citizens often misunderstand legal aspects of ballot initiatives
- 9. Possible Cause Official summaries of initiatives don’t match citizens’ communicative practices
- 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
- 12. What Do Citizens Talk About?
- 13. WHAT’S THE GOAL?
- 14. HOW EFFECTIVE?
- 15. Official summaries of initiatives rarely mention goals or effectiveness of initiatives
- 17. STRATEGIC SCHEMA
- 18. Cognitive structure enabling Identification of Goals Assessment of Effectiveness
- 20. Use observed features of citizens’ legal communication about initiatives, to reform summaries of initiatives
- 21. Theoretical Frameworks Plain Legal Language Theory Social-Cognitive Learning Deliberative Democratic Theory
- 22. Theoretical Frameworks Sense-making Framing Theory of Reasoned Action
- 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?
- 34. GOALS = Description of policy objectives of term limit laws as described in political science scholarship
- 35. more competition in elections which leads to officials’ acting in the public interest more often
- 36. EFFECTIVE = Summary of empirical political science research on effectiveness of term limit laws in achieving their goals
- 37. term limits achieve their purpose during only part of officials’ time in office
- 39. Reflection = Time spent reading stimulus
- 41. Knowledge = 15-item scale (α = .75): percentage of correct answers to questions about legal rules in initiative
- 42. Knowledge Confidence = 3-item scale (α = .93): self-assurance in understanding of legal rules in initiative
- 43. Vote = One 5-point item: vote in favor of or against the initiative: “definitely”/“probably” ; “not sure”
- 44. Voting Confidence = One 7-point item: “How confident do you feel about your answer to the [Vote] question?”
- 47. Policy Objectives Belief = 3-item scale (α = .76): accuracy of beliefs about goals of term- limit laws per stimulus
- 48. Policy Effectiveness Belief = 2-item scale (r = .35, sig.): accuracy of beliefs about effectivenesss of term- limit laws per stimulus
- 50. Belief Measure Effective = 4-item scale (α = .79): belief about likely effectiveness of initiative if enacted
- 51. Attitude about Measure = 3-item scale (α = .89): judgment about initiative
- 52. Controls Demographics Prior Political Knowledge Reading Speed Political Interest Ideology Party Affiliation Partisanship Cultural-Cognitive Worldview (Hierarchism, Individualism)
- 53. Methodology
- 54. Subjects N = 194 undergraduates 49% women, 49.5% men, 1.5% other 75% white, 11% Asian or Asian-American, 14% other
- 55. Procedure Subjects randomly assigned to groups On Qualtrics: pre- questionnaire (measuring prior political knowledge), stimulus, post-questionnaire
- 56. Data Analysis ANOVA Path modeling in AMOS Power suffices to detect medium-sized effects
- 57. Key Findings
- 58. Manipulation Check Goal groups’ result: significant Effectiveness-only group’s result: partially significant
- 60. Inconsistent with PLAIN LEGAL LANGUAGE and SOCIAL-COGNITIVE LEARNING and CAMPAIGN MEDIATION MODEL
- 62. Mediators (Goals): Policy Objectives Belief
- 63. Mediator (Goals & Effective): Policy Objectives Belief
- 64. Consistent with STRATEGIC SCHEMA and THEORY OF REASONED ACTION
- 66. Mediators:
- 67. No significant difference in Voting Decision
- 70. Mediators: Reflection Policy Objectives Belief Legal Knowledge
- 76. Next Steps
- 77. Re-estimate Standard Errors for Indirect Associations for Vote & Voting Confidence Replicate Study
- 78. Conclusion
- 79. No Knowledge Gains Exposure to Goals + Voting Confidence Exposure to Goals alone + Knowledge Confidence
- 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/