Partisanship and independence in the 1992 election campaign in Puerto Rico

This dissertation studies the relation between partisan attachments and political communication during an election campaign in Puerto Rico. Past conceptualizations of partisanship are reviewed, a new one is proposed, and its applicability to a political system outside the United States is evaluated. The specific concept of "Pre-campaign Disposition Toward Partisan Politics", based on dimensions of political attitudes, is tested.;Data were obtained by telephone through a panel survey of voters at two times during the 1992 Puerto Rican election campaign (Time 1 N = 423). Factor, correlational, and multiple regression analyses were performed.;Puerto Rican voters were found to exhibit dimensions of political attitudes similar to those found by Dennis (1988a) in the United States, specifically two Dispositions toward politics, a Partisan and an Independent Disposition. The meaning of the Independence questions may have been different from U.S. studies since independence is one of the status alternatives for Puerto Rico's political relation with the U.S.;The sample was also split by levels of the dispositions, for analysis of covariance. Following Dennis's (1986) Partisan Supporter Typology, voters were grouped into a fourfold typology: Independent Partisans, Ordinary Partisans, Ordinary Independents, and Unattached.;The Partisan Disposition was positively correlated with Attention to Campaign News via all media, but radio was the only medium on which this Disposition affected Attention to Public Affairs News. Attention to Political Commercials was also predicted by this Disposition at Time 1 and 2.;The Independent Disposition was found to have negative effects on Attention to Campaign News in Newspapers, on Frequency of Conversation about Politics, on Attention to Political Commercials at Time 1, and on Attention to Debates at Time 2.;Interaction effects were found for Attention to Public Affairs News via all media, with the Independent group reporting the lowest levels of attention.;The Unattached voters group was, as hypothesized, the only one that significantly increased its attention to campaign news in the last three weeks of the campaign.;The evidence suggests that the Partisan Disposition is a strong determinant of communication behavior, and that the Independent dimension is not well developed in Puerto Rico.