Cologne Local Study on Political Information Practices: State Parliament Election in NRW 1995

Political information practices. Orientations in the voting decision.
Topics:
sources of political information;
most important source of information;
interest in politics;
frequency of use of news on television;
watching political magazines;
interest in political commentaries on television as well as in newspapers;
frequency of use of local as well as
national daily newspapers and weekly newspapers;
interest in the political section in newspapers;
importance of local politics, state politics and federal politics;
self-assessment of extent to which informed on the three political levels;
frequency of political discussions in parental home, in one's family,
in one's circle of friends, with colleagues and neighbors as well as
evaluation of their interest in politics;
personal opinion leadership in political discussions;
resistence to attempts of others to convince;
interest in the election campaign in North Rhine-Westphalia;
perception of election campaign reporting in print media and on television;
memory of TV commercials, radio advertising and election posters
of the individual parties;
general judgement on television advertising, poster advertising, as well as
mail advertising of the individual parties;
information on the parties from whom the respondent had a house visit,
received mail advertising, at whose street-side stand he stopped and
whose election meetings the respondent took part in;
evaluation of house visit experienced and
attitude to house visits by politicians;
assessment of the reliability of election promises;
attitude to the election campaign (scale);
intent to participate in the election;
certainty of one's voting decision;
party preference;
behavior at the polls in the last NRW election;
deliberately not voting in a state parliament election;
importance of knowledge about the religiousness, personal life,
occupational career, political past,
special interest groups close to the politician,
the financial advantages from politics,
the trustworthiness, sympathy, achievement capability of a politician
for one's own voting decision;
assessment of the difficulty to obtain knowledge about the points mentioned;
the significance of knowledge of the principles of a party, and thus the
disagreement and past of a party for one's own voting decision;
knowledge about the intent to participate in the election of
family members, colleagues, friends and neighbors, as well as their
knowledge about one's own intent to participate in the election;
assumed evaluation by these persons
of personal non-participation in the election;
attitude to voting (scale);
significance of one's own vote for the election result;
assessment of the political effectiveness of letters to the editor,
collection of signatures, demonstrations, citizens' initiatives and
discussionn with members of parliament;
satisfaction with democracy;
feeling of political effectiveness;
opportunity to influence by voting;
corruptness of parties and politicians;
expressing dissatisfaction by voting for outsider parties,
by invalid ballots or not voting;
most able party in NRW;
party representing the interests of respondent;
preference for prime minister;
uncertainty about the result of the NRW election;
effects of governing party on personal situation in life;
judgement on achievements of individual parties as well as selected politicians;
judgement on the economic situation and the economic development
of the last few years in NRW;
personal economic situation;
judgement on personal situation in life;
party inclination;
party supporter;
reasons for party identification (scale).
Demography:
sex;
age (month and year of birth);
marital status;
living together with a partner;
school education;
completed vocational training;
employment;
occupation;
size of household;
going to the polling station together;
religious denomination;
frequency of church attendance;
union membership;
membership in an ecology group;
election norm of the denomination, the trade union and the ecology group;
activity in a trade union, an ecology group or a party;
further memberships and activities;
party closeness of the trade union;
self-assessment of social class;
housing situation;
size of residence;
residential status;
amount of rent;
characterization of residential surroundings (scale).
Interviewer rating:
start of interview;
interview end;
date of interview;
presence of third persons during interview and reasons for this presence;
intervention of others in the interview;
willingness of respondent to cooperate;
identification of interviewer.