ATTENTION TO THE MASS MEDIA AMONG STRAIGHT AND SPLIT TICKET VOTERS: A RESEARCH NOTE

This study deals with one aspect of the communication behavior of voters who voted a straight ticket and those who split their ticket in the 1972 election in Michigan. In an election situation it is assumed that information about the candidates helps the individual make a decision how to vote. Paying attention to the candidates in the mass media is an important means of obtaining information. It was thus hypothesized that if an individual exposes himself to mass media information on only one party's candidates, he is less likely to split his ticket than if he exposes himself to candidates of both parties. It was found that the higher the attention level of the individual to all the candidates, the more he tended to split his ticket. Also, the less his attention was selective to candidates of only one party, the more he tended to split his ticket.