| Abstract: | This study explored citizens' political involvement, their attention to candidates ' issue stands or personal qualities, and their evaluations of the relevance of different sources of information to political decision making. A telephone survey of a random sample (N = 420) of registered voters in a Southwestern city indicated that involvement did not associate with evaluations of the relevance of newspapers or television news to political decision making and negatively associated with evaluations of the relevance of advertising to political decision making. In addition, respondents ' attention to candidates 'personal qualities positively associated with evaluations of advertising relevance to political decision making, whereas their attention to candidates ' issue stands positively associated with their evaluations of the relevance of interpersonal communication to political decision making. These results suggest that involved voters receive little benefit from political advertisements, whereas voters who attend to candidate images find them informative. Interpersonal communication is an especially important source of election information for highly involved voters and for voters who attend to candidate issues. |
