Applying Virtualized Real-Time Response Measurement on TV-Discussions with Multi-Person Panels

Televised debates are major events in electoral campaigns, serving voters as a substantial source of political information and reaching millions of the potential electorate. Scholars have made use of this potential by applying Real-Time Response Measurement (RTR) to assess reception and perception processes. However, RTR-research has yet almost exclusively focused on duel scenarios. In this paper, we argue that the focus on the duel format in political and communication science research is inappropriate. Thus, we apply virtualized RTR on TV-debates with a multi-person panel. Drawing on data of two field studies (n = 1191/1058) conducted with the Debat-O-Meter – an innovative virtualized RTR-Measurement toolbox – in the course of the 2017 federal election in Germany, we show that virtualized RTR-Measurement can indeed produce valid and reliable data regarding TV-discussions with a multi-person podium. Additionally, we find perception processes to be primarily shaped by party identification and prior political preferences such as candidate orientation. Furthermore, our results give strong evidence that candidate preferences are substantially affected by debate reception. Overall, our data follows an established structure well-known from research on TV-duels. As such, research on TV discussions with a multi-person panel is compatible with the existing repertoire of methods, offers great potential for political communication research and provides results that can be linked to current findings in empirical debate research while making its own contribution to the research field.