EUROPEAN ELECTIONS AND THE PRE-ELECTORAL PERIOD - MEDIA USE AND CAMPAIGN EVALUATIONS

Abstract: This article addresses the problems of the campaign period of the 1989 Euro‐elections: frequency of following the campaign, media use, preferences for various channels of communication (conversations, encounters with party workers, political meetings, mailed material, posters, advertisements, press, TV, radio). It demonstrates that, even if important national variations can be found, common socio‐economic and political stratifications are at work, across borders, on the continent. The variables of sex, occupation and political affiliations clearly play a role which frequently is transnational, and sometimes more active than the variable of nation. It is also true that, compared to the 1979 campaign, the 1989 one is marked by a problem of significant alignments: the last campaign tends to be less sexist, less ‘socially privileged’ and less biased to right wing voters than the first one. But these alignments take place among weak figures of interest and participation. Copyright © 1991, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved