Matching Items (7)
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- All Subjects: Politics
- Creators: Woodall, Gina
Description
In Arizona's early history, Females garnered more independence than most other women in the United States because they were forced to build a completely new life in settlements with little to no infrastructure. Now, Arizona has achieved a level of equality that no other state has yet to achieve in regard to gender representation. Yet, we have yet to achieve total equity. This paper looks to analyze responses that female senators from the Arizona State Legislature gave while being interviewed by the author. With questions derived from previous research conducted on women in politics at the state and federal level, this paper will delve into the personal experiences of six female senators. Although their personal narratives differ, their stories seem to reflect a collective tie that unites the female members together, beyond party allegiance. Each of the responses given by the senators had some aspects that showed trends supporting the majority of the hypotheses. Moving forward, in order to achieve 50% equality, two more senators would need to be elected and replace male senators.
ContributorsMacdonald, James Nicholson (Author) / Woodall, Gina (Thesis director) / Lyon, Jenna (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
We were interested in whether or not certain demographics, such as gender, age, education level, and academic major, would affect an individual's political awareness. In particular, we hypothesized that Political Science majors would have a higher level of political awareness than Non-Political Science majors. In an in-person survey, we asked participants on the Arizona State University, Tempe campus a series of nine questions measuring government structure and procedure, current politics, and policy issues. Our findings concluded that, within our sample: 1) on average, Political Science majors outperformed Non-Political Science majors 2) education level appears to be positively associated with political awareness 3) like education, age appears to be positively associated with political awareness, however, there seemed to be a peak at 21 years of age 4) males outperformed females, as suggested by research studying the gender gap in political knowledge. Because our sample population was not randomly selected, and this report focuses on descriptive statistics, we cannot generalize or comment on our findings' statistical significance. However, many of our findings are supported by current research and, with further specification, may be of interest to university officials who seek to measure the political knowledge and awareness of various demographic groups on campus.
ContributorsTaylor, Kaela (Co-author) / Leung, Emily (Co-author) / Lennon, Tara (Thesis director) / Woodall, Gina (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
A study on the effectiveness of different graphic design elements, such as color and shape, in political communication over a digital medium. The study was conducted through an online survey of young adults (18-25 years old). Participants' preferences for the design elements are compared to their online and offline political participation and their primary sources for political information.
ContributorsRyan, Daiquiri Ice (Author) / Lennon, Tara (Thesis director) / Woodall, Gina (Committee member) / Blyler, Lisa (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Campaign finance regulation has drastically changed since the founding of the Republic. Originally, few laws regulated how much could be contributed to political campaigns and who could make contributions. One by one, Congress passed laws to limit the possibility of corruption, for example by banning the solicitation of federal workers and banning contributions from corporations. As the United States moved into the 20th Century, regulations became more robust with more accountability. The modern structure of campaign finance regulation was established in the 1970's with legislation like the Federal Election Campaign Act and with Supreme Court rulings like in Buckley v. Valeo. Since then, the Court has moved increasingly to strike down campaign finance laws they see as limiting to First Amendment free speech. However, Arizona is one of a handful of states that established a system of publicly financed campaigns at the state-wide and legislative level. Passed in 1998, Proposition 200 attempted to limit the influence of money politics. For my research I hypothesized that a public financing system like the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (CCEC) would lead to Democrats running with public funds more than Republicans, women running clean more than men, and rural candidates running clean more than urban ones, and that Democrats, women, and rural candidates would win in higher proportions than than if they ran a traditional campaign. After compiling data from the CCEC and the National Institute on Money in State Politics, I found that Democrats do run with public funds in statistically higher proportions than Republicans, but when they do they lose in higher proportions than Democrats who run traditionally. Female candidates only ran at a statistically higher proportion from 2002 to 2008, after which the difference was not statistically significant. For all year ranges women who ran with public money lost in higher proportions than women who ran traditionally. Similarly, rural candidates only ran at a statistically higher proportion from 2002 to 2008. However, they only lost at higher proportions from 2002 to 2008 instead of the whole range like with women and Democratic candidates.
ContributorsMarshall, Austin Tyler (Author) / Herrera, Richard (Thesis director) / Jones, Ruth (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
This thesis explores a method of how political information could be distributed to the public and asks the question, what is the best way to provide voters with all of the information they need to cast an informed vote? It involved the creation of a website, www.azleglive.info, which republishes state legislative data in interactive and visually condensed formats and asked users to compare it to the existing Arizona State Legislature website on the metrics of depth of information, usability, and clarity. It also asked what resources users would utilize in order to cast a vote in the next election. Ultimately, the majority of users determined that the new website added needed usability and clarity to available legislative information, but that both websites would be useful when voting. In conclusion, the responsibility of disseminating useful information to voters is most likely to be effective when distributed among a variety of sources.
ContributorsJosephson, Zachary (Co-author) / Umaretiya, Amy (Co-author) / Jones, Ruth (Thesis director) / Woodall, Gina (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
As social media becomes a dominant tool in political campaigns, it is important to analyze how candidates and voters interact over social media and how this impacts elections. This study aims to uncover whether Instagram comments - a key tool voters use to interact with candidates - have an impact on voters’ perceptions and whether or not there are differences in these impacts based on the gender of the candidate. Due to bias against women in politics, I hypothesize that respondents will evaluate female candidates more harshly than male candidates after viewing negative Instagram comments associated with them. To test this hypothesis, I randomly separated a sample of 435 undergraduate students into four groups. Each group was assigned a hypothetical incumbent Senate candidate (male or female) and shown a candidate biography. The biographies were identical, save for the names/genders of the candidates. Additionally, the two experimental groups were shown negative Instagram comments associated with their candidate. Each group was asked to evaluate their candidate's viability, favorability, competency, leadership ability, and qualifications, in addition to scoring the likelihood that they would vote for them. I found that the male candidate had lower scores than his female counterpart for all six traits evaluated, meaning he was evaluated more harshly. This persisted in both the control and experimental groups, as well as both before and after the stimulus was presented to the experimental groups. However, the respondents’ evaluation scores for the female candidate dropped by a larger margin after viewing the negative comments than the scores for the male candidate did. This persisted for five of the six traits evaluated. Voters’ perceptions, then, are impacted by negative Instagram comments for male and female candidates, although there is some evidence to indicate that they have a larger negative effect on the perceptions of female candidates.
ContributorsDawson, Lydia (Author) / Woodall, Gina (Thesis director) / Lennon, Tara (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
This study aims to gain a better understanding of the potential influence that perceived levels of attractiveness impose on individuals’ perceptions of male and female candidates’ competency and favorability. I utilized a quasi-experimental design that had a total of 603 respondents, all of which were current students at Arizona State University. The experimental design of the study consisted of the same pre-test, and post-test questionnaire, with a randomly assigned experimental group viewing a video regarding the halo effect, and a randomly assigned control group viewing a neutral video with no comment on attractiveness and its inherent effects. The results demonstrate insignificant findings in regard to candidate favorability and attractiveness, but one significant finding revealed itself in regard to competency. Hypothesis 6 (H6) identified an unexpected, yet statistically significant finding when concerning the ‘above average’ female candidate and respondents’ perception of her competency. This suggests that individuals may be more inclined to favorably perceive the competency of an attractive female candidate when they are aware of their implicit biases that accompany increased levels of attractiveness. This study offers insight into whether perceived level of attractiveness affects evaluations of male and female politicians.
ContributorsAndrade, Madison Antoinette (Author) / Woodall, Gina (Thesis director) / Kenney, Patrick (Committee member) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12