The Audience Decides: Applause-Cheering, Laughter, and Booing During Debates in the Trump Era

The Audience Decides argues that the political parties, aided and abetted by mass media, have abdicated one of their most important responsibilities: that of providing and vetting the best leadership options available. The search for followers, ratings, and attention has led to the structure of presidential debates, especially during the primary season, being driven by goals of entertaining the public at the expense of enlightening the citizenry. To understand the role of the audience as active participant in political debates, and how their function has been subverted, this book focuses on behavior by the candidates and in-person audiences during the 2016 and 2020 general election debates. It does so by using observational methods to consider nonverbal behaviors by candidates to establish on-stage dominance and the observable audience reactions by the in-person audience and their effect on those following the debates. It is anticipated that The Audience Decides will allow for evaluation and reconsideration of how debates, or whatever replaces them, might not only entertain, but also enlighten the most important part of representative democracy - the voting public. Ultimately, it is hoped that debates will help the audience decide who their leader will be based upon substance, not style.

Patrick A. Stewart is professor of political science at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville