Explaining Majority Support for Stem Cell Research:
Did Communication Efforts Trump Moral Values in
2004?
Matthew Nisbet
November 15, 2004
In the days following the Presidential election, many media observers arrived
at an interpretation of Bush’s victory as driven by a voter focus on morality
and values. Contrary to pollsters and campaign strategists who in the lead up to
the election predicted that the war in Iraq, terrorism, the economy, and jobs
would be the major themes that would decide the Presidential race, immediate
post-election press analysis dubbed the outcome a matter of “Guns, God, and Gays.” As support for the explanation, many
reporters cited exit poll results that showed moral values to be the most
important issue named by voters. They also noted that nearly a quarter of voters
nationwide were white Evangelical Christians with seven out of ten Evangelicals
voting for Bush. A recent analysis
finds that since the election “moral values” has been used in more than 4,000
press stories.
In conversations and circulated emails across universities during election
week, many colleagues almost immediately began to question the moral values
interpretation. When I discussed the issue in a course I teach on “Quantitative Reasoning for Journalists,” several of the
journalism students shared my skepticism. Confronted with tight deadlines,
immense uncertainty, a compelling narrative, and an explanation that fit with
their East coast tastes, the simplicity of the moral values explanation seemed
too convenient and easy a fit for many reporters. By the end of election week,
others in the media had criticized the moral values interpretation. (See, for
example, Howard Kurtz’s column.)
More in depth analysis of the complexities of the election will help sort out
the accuracy of this first draft of history. Already, a survey report by the Pew Center for the People & the Press casts some doubt on
the moral values interpretation. According to the Pew report, the relative
importance of moral values depends greatly on how the question is asked. In
response to the question “What mattered most to your vote?,” the post-election
survey finds that when moral values is included as a response option against
issues like Iraq and terrorism, a plurality (27%) cites moral values as most
important to their vote. But when a separate group of voters were not provided
response options, and were asked to name in their own words the most
important factor in their vote, significantly fewer (14%) mentioned moral
values.
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