Study shows expression just as important as words in presidential debates
Study shows expression just as important as words in presidential debates
Texas Tech University at Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150113153954.htm
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When it comes to presidential candidates in nationally televised debates, though, a series of studies by a Texas Tech University professor in the College of Media and Communication are showing the nonverbal repertoires that make up a presidential candidate's communication style are important influencers of voter reaction.
Erik Bucy, a regents professor of strategic communication at Texas Tech, is a popular guest lecturer around the world for his research on nonverbal expressions in political news and presidential debates and how those televised leader displays affect public perceptions of candidates.
Over the past year, Bucy has presented the results to several national associations, spoke at a symposium on nonverbal communication and democracy in Sweden, guest lectured at UCLA and participated in an invited conference sponsored by the C-SPAN Education Foundation and Purdue University.
Some of this work, conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Wisconsin (UW), is summarized in a paper entitled "The Power of Television Images in a Social Media Age: Linking Biobehavioral and Computational Approaches via the Second Screen," soon to be published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
What Bucy and his colleagues discovered is candidates' facial expressions, gestures and voice tone do as much do as much or more to drive public reaction to the debates than what the candidates actually say.
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