Second Screen Effects on Candidate Performance Evaluations during the 2013 Televised German Candidate Debate

The second screen has been a growing phenomenon in how individuals consume television in recent years. Particularly the increasing prevalence of smartphones allows viewers to join online communities and exchange views on programs. An interactive viewership experience is at times even explicitly invited by producers by specifically designing online platforms or creating dedicated social media presences to frame shows. Academic analysts have been quick to consider the ramifications of this new phenomenon for the viewer experience. While many observers have investigated the content of concurrent online discussions dedicated to particular programs, it is much more challenging to capture the effects of such accompanying viewership. This study makes an attempt at filling some of the gaps in this research program. Specifically, we analyze data from a panel study that was collected on the occasion of the televised candidate debate that was aired as part of the 2013 German federal election campaign. The candidate debate is one of the most important events on the campaign trail and arguably has the potential to shape electoral outcomes. It is thus crucial how viewers perceive candidate performances during the debate. This contribution considers whether and how performance evaluations on the second screen – in the present case: Twitter – shape performance evaluations of viewers that are concurrent social media users. To this end, a sample of Twitter users was invited to participate in a short survey in the days before the candidate debate and re-contacted for the panel component of the survey after the debate. Additionally, participants were invited to provide the names of their Twitter accounts. This allows us to link individual performance evaluations with the content of the respondents' Twitter messages and more importantly with the candidate performance evaluations in the respondents' Twitter feeds.