{"title":"The telegraph and turnout: Evidence from Sweden","authors":"Guillem Amatller , Johannes Lindvall","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2024.102795","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This research note uses district-level panel data from 1870s Sweden to estimate the effect of the electric telegraph on electoral turnout. We argue that the telegraph contributed to higher turnout since it connected local communities to a national communication network, making people more aware of election campaigns and national political issues and more motivated to vote. Previous studies of the turnout effects of new telecommunication technologies have examined the radio, television, and the internet, with mixed results. Unlike these later technologies, the telegraph was almost exclusively used to transmit information, not entertainment, and it did not replace an existing telecommunication technology. Our empirical findings suggest that the telegraph had a positive effect on turnout, but only in areas with local newspapers that could benefit from the speedy access to national news.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"90 ","pages":"Article 102795"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Electoral Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379424000532","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
This research note uses district-level panel data from 1870s Sweden to estimate the effect of the electric telegraph on electoral turnout. We argue that the telegraph contributed to higher turnout since it connected local communities to a national communication network, making people more aware of election campaigns and national political issues and more motivated to vote. Previous studies of the turnout effects of new telecommunication technologies have examined the radio, television, and the internet, with mixed results. Unlike these later technologies, the telegraph was almost exclusively used to transmit information, not entertainment, and it did not replace an existing telecommunication technology. Our empirical findings suggest that the telegraph had a positive effect on turnout, but only in areas with local newspapers that could benefit from the speedy access to national news.
期刊介绍：
Electoral Studies is an international journal covering all aspects of voting, the central act in the democratic process. Political scientists, economists, sociologists, game theorists, geographers, contemporary historians and lawyers have common, and overlapping, interests in what causes voters to act as they do, and the consequences. Electoral Studies provides a forum for these diverse approaches. It publishes fully refereed papers, both theoretical and empirical, on such topics as relationships between votes and seats, and between election outcomes and politicians reactions; historical, sociological, or geographical correlates of voting behaviour; rational choice analysis of political acts, and critiques of such analyses.
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