Panel Analysis - Method and Results of the research "The People's Choice" : Metamorphoses of Voter Preferences, Mechanisms and Subjects of the Election Campaign
Abstract
This article discusses the method of panel analysis and the results of "The People's Choice" research conducted by P. F.
Lazarsfeld, B. Berelson and H.
Gaudet, and continues from the previous article by this author [Jeřábek 2000], dedicated to the same research, focusing on the social determinants behind a voter's decision. The article examines the method of repeated analysis of the same group of respondents.
The authors analyse the degree of stability in voter preferences and the manner by which they are transformed over the course of the pre-election campaign. They arrive at a typology of voters, who are divided into "constants", "crystallisers", "indecision waverers", "party waverers" and "party changers".
The authors also focus on the mechanisms of transforming voter preferences. The final part of the article concentrates on the actors in the election campaign, comprised of the voters themselves, the political parties, the mass media and social groups, and analyse the role of interpersonal communication in an election campaign.