Electoral Impact of Televised Leaders' Debates on Australian Federal Elections.

Since 1984, every Australian federal election campaign except 1987 has featured at least one televised debate between the leaders of the major parties. These debates have been the subject of considerable speculation, particularly in the popular press. However, initial enthusiasm and optimism has been replaced, in part, by skepticism and indifference about their impact. Although viewing audiences for the early debates were large, audiences have steadily declined in more recent campaigns. Although televised debates are ostensibly an established part of federal elections, their influence on individual vote choice and aggregate impact on the vote has received little academic attention. This paper considers each campaign since 1990 and, using data from The Australian Election Study series, it assesses the impact of leaders' debates on individual vote choice. It investigates whether the impact varies for different groups of the electorate, considering the role of partisan identification, as well as whether any influence of the debates extends beyond the actual viewing audience. Finally, it estimates the aggregate impact on the vote attributable to the debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]