The Impact of Multimedia Technology on Candidate Website Visitors

Candidate websites have become a standard part of contemporary campaigns, yet researchers and practitioners know little about how their design affects voters. This article investigates how the decision to present information with multimedia (i.e., audio and/or video) influences the evaluations and vote intentions of candidate website visitors. Results from an experiment show that using multimedia had a modest net benefit resulting from conditional reactions based on participants' party identification and political interest the candidate's partisan supporters reacted positively while non-supporters, particularly those with limited political interest, were less impressed. These findings provide some initial empirical evidence of the impact that multimedia can have on candidate website visitors.