by William C. Adams, Allison Salzman,
William Vantine, Leslie Suelter, Anne Baker,
Lucille Bonvouloir, Barbara Brenner,
Margaret Ely, Jean Feldman & Ron Ziegel

Public Opinion Quarterly
49 (Fall 1985) 330-339.

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Abstract: A field test of 966 moviegoers found that a significant number of them were favorably influenced toward John Glenn's candidacy for president by the film The Right Stuff. The docudrama reinforced positive images of Glenn and sustained those impressions for a longer than expected period.

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For students of political communications, The Right Stuff raised a more enduring issue that went beyond the immediate campaign consequences of the movie. That issue may be referred to as the "docudrama hypothesis," which stipulates that the docudrama, as a hybrid of melodramatic fiction and news documentary, powerfully influences viewers' conceptions of social and political reality. Public images of both distant and recent history are said to be molded by these film and video dramas.

Dan Nimmo and James Combs (1983), in a valuable discussion of the genre, maintain that "our political knowledge of the past and present is partially formed by the dramatic fantasies of popular media." They suggest that fictional interpretations of history effectively "yield the illusion that viewers are participating in a recreation of the real event" and in turn shape "much of what we 'know' about the past" (p. 71).

This docudrama hypothesis has been asserted far more often than it has been tested. For example, we found no recent examples of large-scale field studies of the effects of motion pictures (either docudrama or pure fiction) on political and social attitudes of adults. One exploratory study with 115 students, one-third of whom had seen All the President's Men, concluded that the film shifted attitudes toward the role of the press in confronting the government (Elliott and Schenck-Hamlin, 1979).

Nimmo and Combs contended that this blend of news and melodrama is an especially seductive force. As plausible as this view sounds, however, one could construct a counter-hypothesis: Uses of the media for escapism and entertainment may be sufficiently compartmentalized and discounted so that there are no measurable short-term effects on existing political opinions and perhaps little or no long-term effects.

Like All the President's Men, The Right Stuff mixed news accounts with a putatively accurate behind-the-scenes story. However, The Right Stuff focused more on the personal heroism of the space pioneers than on politics. Consequently, it offered an especially interesting test of the docudrama hypothesis. When watching Hollywood's rendition of writer Tom Wolfe's version of the astronaut saga, would Americans draw explicitly political conclusions about a 1963 astronaut as a 1984 presidential contender? To assess the influence of The Right Stuff, we conducted a quasi-experimental field study of 966 moviegoers in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia during October 1983.

Methodology

During the weekend of October 21-22, 1983, researchers surveyed 408 moviegoers at two theaters in northern Virginia, 362 moviegoers at one large theater in Washington, D.C., and 97 moviegoers at a theater in suburban Maryland. Adults, age 17 and older, were interviewed at random, with no more than one person interviewed per pair or group of moviegoers.

These 966 adults were randomly selected for one of three groups(1):

1. the pretest group (320 people who were administered a brief questionnaire prior to viewing The Right Stuff);
2. the posttest group (347 people who were surveyed with identical questions immediately after viewing The Right Stuff); and
3. the delayed posttest group (299 people who provided either mailing addresses or telephone numbers and responded to a later survey designed to assess longer-term effects).

Separate posttest samples were drawn (rather than just reinterviewing the same people) to avoid pretesting that might unduly "sensitize" respondents to prepare for the posttest. Random selection resulted in pretest and posttest groups that were highly similar in their demographic composition. No significant differences were found between the pretest, posttest, or delayed posttest groups on the variables of age, sex, or party affiliations.

The demographic comparability of the groups confirmed that scores of the pretest group could serve as baseline measures against which to contrast the scores of their counterparts in the posttest and delayed posttest groups. When tests of statistical significance showed pretest-posttest differences to be greater than might have been obtained by chance, we attributed the differences to The Right Stuff. There were no other plausible explanations for attitude change during this brief three-hour period.

On the other hand, alternative explanations would abound for any changes found two weeks later in the delayed posttest group, but the purpose of the lagged measurement was to see if any short-term changes would withstand subsequent pressures. The immediate reactions to The Right Stuff will be examined first.

Scale Rankings of Glenn

In the first items in the interview, respondents were asked to rank John Glenn from 0 to 100 "as a politician" and again "as a person." They were shown a scale from 0 to 100, with 0 representing "very unfavorable" and 100 "very favorable."

People who had just seen The Right Stuff ranked Glenn higher both as a person and as a politician than did those in the pretest group. Using t-tests, the difference in the pretest and posttest mean ratings of Glenn as a politician was statistically significant at the .005 level of probability, and was significant at the .001 level for Glenn as a person (see Table 1).

Glenn got higher marks as a person than as a politician; his mean scores "as a person" (among both the pretest and posttest groups) were nearly one-third higher than his score "as a politician." Still, among those who had watched The Right Stuff, both ratings went up almost 10 percent. Thus, The Right Stuff shifted attitudes not only toward Glenn as a private person but also toward Glenn as a politician – an apparent "halo effect" whereby favorably perceived characteristics in one area overlap into higher evaluations in other areas.
 

Voter Preferences

Did the shift to somewhat more positive views of John Glenn as a person and politician translate into changes in political choices? Moviegoers were next asked the following:

"Who do you prefer as the Democratic nominee for president?"

"If the presidential election were held today, would you be more likely to vote for Ronald Reagan or John Glenn?"

In both instances, the voting-age moviegoers who had seen The RightStuff were more supportive of Glenn than their premovie cohorts. (The differences were statistically significant at the .05 level.) Postmovie endorsements of Glenn for the Democratic nomination were up 7 percent from 42 to 49 percent.(2)
 

Foootnote 2:  This same week, Gallup found 23 percent of the Democrats nationwide favored Glenn for the nomination. Among Democrats entering the theaters we surveyed, 34 percent favored Glenn. Democrats in the area (particularly Virginia) may well have been somewhat more pro-Glenn than those elsewhere (e.g., Virginia Governor Charles Robb supported Glenn). The Glenn figures in Table 2 were boosted further by his stronger support among Independents and Republicans who were included in these totals. Analytically, it is not problematic if the movie did attract some extra clusters of Glenn supporters. Their sentiment is controlled by the pretest baseline data, and the data analysis is based on changes in the posttest. Moreover, one virtue of field studies is that the subjects are not an artifically assembled groups (e.g., the usual captive sophomores).

This new Hollywood product also proved potent against the veteran of Hollywood, Ronald Reagan. Postmovie approvals of Glenn over Reagan in the White House were also up 7 percent – from 56 to 63 percent. The data again show a positive effect of The Right Stuff for the Glenn campaign. The magnitude of that effect was not trivial – especially where presidential politics is concerned.

Did this shift to Glenn come largely from certain groups? According to our data, the higher posttest ratings of Glenn occurred across the board in all groups – among Democrats, Independents, and Republicans; among younger, middle-aged, and older adults; and among men and women.

Perceived Movie Impact

The last question in the posttest asked for a personal assessment of the movie's impact on views of John Glenn as a presidential contender.(3) Our analysis of opinion changes did not rely on this self-assessment, but the item was included at the end to provide a measure of the sort of self-conscious judgments people were making about the movie in the context of the early campaign.
 

Foootnote 3: This item read as follows: "After seeing this movie, my opinion of John Glenn as a presidential candidate is (1) much higher, (2) somewhat higher, (3) unchanged, (4) somewhat lower, or (5) much lower."

The results were unexpected. Over one-third of those who saw The Right Stuff (37.4 percent) said their opinion about Glenn "as a presidential candidate" was at least somewhat changed. Table 3 shows the full breakdown of responses.

Most viewers (nearly 63 percent) denied that the film had changed their political thinking, but a large minority reacted differently. About one in 10 moviegoers said their opinions of Glenn the politician were "much higher" after seeing the movie. Another one out of four said their views of him were "somewhat higher." A handful reacted adversely; 3 percent of the sample said their assessment of Glenn was lowered by the movie.
 

Age, sex, and party identification had no relationship with people's likelihood of feeling influenced by The Right Stuff. The one variable with a strong (and statistically significant at the .001 level) relationship to perceptions of the impact of the movie was that of "preferences for the Democratic nomination." Half of the people (49 percent) who wanted Glenn to be the Democratic nominee said the movie increased their political estimation of Glenn. Only about one-fifth (22 percent) of those who favored other nominees thought the movie had made them more positive toward Glenn's candidacy.

Some of these Glenn supporters were in all probability tipped toward Glenn by the movie itself. Nevertheless, most of these Glenn supporters were already in his camp. For half of them to find cause in The Right Stuff for increased justification to favor Glenn is strong evidence that the movie worked to provide reinforcement for those already predisposed toward him. This is consistent with decades of communication research which finds reinforcement effects to be relatively widespread while conversion effects are less frequent.

Up to this point, only short-term reactions have been reviewed. It may well be that views voiced in the afterglow of a rousing movie will fade before dawn. How enduring were the favorable opinions of John Glenn'?

Delayed Posttest

At the same theaters and showings used for the pretests and posttests on October 22-23, another 328 randomly selected people agreed to provide either their mailing addresses (128) or telephone number (200) so that we could contact them at a later unspecified time. Most people cooperated with the follow-up survey (97 percent telephone completions and 83 percent mail questionnaire completions).

The delayed posttest survey was completed by a total of 299 respondents. This group showed no statistically significant differences from the pretest or posttest groups on either of the available demographic variables (age and sex) or in terms of party identification. What had transpired during the intervening weeks that might have influenced these people?

A major series of news stories bombarded the country between October 22-23 (when subjects saw The Right Stuff) and November 3-14 (dates of delayed posttest interviews two to three weeks later): On October 24, just one day after the Friday and Saturday surveys, a terrorist's truck loaded with dynamite killed over 200 U.S. Marines in Beirut. Then on October 25, American soldiers landed in Grenada and overthrew the Revolutionary Military Command. In the meantime, the economy continued to show declining unemployment, low levels of inflation, and economic growth.

In the midst of the economic surge, the Caribbean victory, and the flag-rallying Beirut tragedy. President Reagan's popularity soared. In early October, Gallup had found the public evenly divided on Reagan's presidency – 45 percent approved and 44 percent disapproved. By mid-November, however, Reagan's approval rating reached 53 percent, with only 37 percent disapproving. Did the three-hour drama of The Right Stuff pale beside the daily drama of Grenada, Lebanon, and the economy?

Responses from the delayed posttest group evidenced a sustained impact of The Right Stuff. Evaluations of Glenn as a person and as a politician stayed at higher levels close to those of the immediate posttest group. Mean ratings of Glenn as a person fell slightly to 76.9 but were not significantly different from the immediate posttest mean of 78.6. Likewise, mean ratings of Glenn as a politician stayed close to that obtained just after the movie ended (see Table 4.) The movie's modest boost to Glenn's image did not disappear overnight, or even during the barrage of news from Grenada and Lebanon.

Nationwide, during this period, the standing of all the Democratic contenders declined in mock election matchups with Reagan. In early October, Gallup showed Glenn leading Reagan by a margin of 49 to 42 percent. By mid-November, however, Reagan had pulled even with Glenn, 47 to 47 percent. Thus, nationwide, Glenn dropped a statistically significant 7 percentage points in the race against Reagan.
 

To an identical degree, Reagan's standing also improved among our respondents – with the share supporting Glenn over Reagan also dropping a statistically significant 7 percentage points. Respondents shifted in tandem with the national trend during this period – but the change occurred from the posttest score of 63 percent pro-Glenn, not from the pretest base of 56 percent. To have both erased the effects of The Right Stuff (-7 percent) and to have covaried with the national Reagan trend (-7 percent), Glenn's support among the delayed posttest group would have had to fall to 49 percent. Instead, it declined only from 63 to 56 percent, suggesting the impact of the national pro-Reagan trend, but retaining the influence of The Right Stuff.

A slightly different pattern emerged in the contest for the Democratic nomination. The same weekend as our initial surveys, Gallup found 24 percent of the Independents and Democrats nationwide favored Glenn for the nomination. There was no significant movement by the mid-November Gallup survey when 23 percent of the Independents and Democrats said they preferred Glenn.

Just as there was no evidence of any nationwide shifts over this four week period, there was also no significant change in the attitudes of our respondents toward Glenn as the potential Democratic nominee. Glenn's support among those in the delayed posttest group dropped, but it was not a statistically significant change from the immediate posttest (46.1 versus 48.9 percent, respectively).

Nearly the same proportion of people declared that the film had influenced their opinion of "John Glenn as a presidential candidate" weeks after watching it as had said so minutes after the film ended: 35 percent of those in the immediate posttest and 34 percent of those in the delayed posttest believed the movie made them more favorable toward Glenn as a presidential contender. There was no statistically significant difference between the two posttest groups on this question.

Outside the Theater

Despite all these findings, two entirely different factors limited The Right Stuff's direct political influence on the 1984 campaign. First, relatively few voters saw it. Although it later earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture of 1983, the audiences for this big-budget epic fell far short of expectations.

Promoters came to believe the film's early public identification as a "political picture" damaged its reputation. The film also lacked three key Hollywood ingredients: it had no big-name star and was short on sex and violence. Whatever the reasons, no more than about 3 million people went to see the movie during the first four months after the film's release (Pollock, 1984; Variety, 1984). Thus, prior to the early primaries roughly 1.4 million registered voters saw The Right Stuff – barely more than 1 percent of the electorate. Had the movie hit Star Wars heights, its political ramifications might have been of greater dimensions.

In addition to the box-office disappointment, a second factor may have offset the pro-Glenn effect of The Right Stuff. There is at least circumstantial evidence that the movie damaged Glenn among members of the general public who were not in the audience – by encouraging the view that Glenn was running for president as a former astronaut rather than as an accomplished senator (see Blumenthal, 1983).

Evidence on this score comes from three corroborating points: The largest share of attention Glenn received on network television during 1983 came during October – it focused on The Right Stuff. Adams (1984) has shown that this was the only time in 1983 when intense media attention to a Democratic candidate was not followed by an upturn for that candidate in the next Gallup poll. (Symbolically enough, Glenn himself never made the cover of Newsweek in 1983, but Ed Harris the actor who portrayed Glenn, appeared in a space suit on the cover.)

Docudramas as Newsreels

The Right Stuff played better for Glenn inside the theater than it did outside the theater. Although the film originated in Tom Wolfe's vision of rocket pioneers, it appeared to many viewers as a dramatized newsreel. The movie scarcely discouraged that impression, presenting itself as a journalistic representation of news events. Although it depicted journalists as a troupe of buffoons, the film's own posture was that of an accurate tale of recent history.

One columnist (Kaiser,1983) wrote that it was insulting and implausible to think that "a syrupy Hollywood movie" would send citizens into "patriotic swoons" to vote for John Glenn. This tribute to the astronauts, he argued, would be inconsequential because it only "reaffirms what we already know about John Glenn – that he is a genuine American hero, that he deserves to have all those junior high schools named for him." It is true that the movie confirmed what many people thought they "already knew about John Glenn." But rather than making the film superfluous, that element was probably one source of its power to persuade.

This fictive reconstruction of memory and perceptions is a crucial component of the fact-fiction-politics-drama melange in docudramas. With the appropriated credibility of history, The Right Stuff's messages were consistent with viewer's prior impressions (e.g., astronauts were brave) and with their recollection of 1960s news. This congruence added further legitimacy to the film's perceived accuracy and nonthreatening context, and it lent authenticity to the inventive parts of the story with which viewers were unfamiliar.

Audiences witnessed an intense, 3-hour 15-minute, dramatic, upbeat docudrama which included a largely sympathetic portrayal of Glenn as a bold and courageous astronaut, a forthright and decent gentleman, and a loving and sensitive husband – images which could have been more suspect in an overtly partisan context. In this setting, moviegoers had ample opportunity to seize positive, credible, and reinforcing ideas about Glenn's character.

To acquire and accept those ideas, viewers had to grant the docudrama the status of a newsreel. They had to accept as valid the actors' portrayals of the personalities, motives, and interactions of the characters. Viewers had to accept the historical authenticity of a movie filled with dramatic episodes that never happened. Viewers then had to make another leap to apply these romanticized images taken from two decades earlier to a 1984 presidential campaign. Overall, this constituted a strict test of The Right Stuff and the docudrama hypothesis. The Right Stuff was not hypnotizing entire audiences into instant loyalty to Glenn, but a significant share of the people who saw the docudrama were favorably influenced toward John Glenn's candidacy for president.

References

1. Adams, William C. 1984. "Media coverage of campaign '84." Public Opinion 7:9-13.
2. Blumenthal, Sidney. 1983. "Statecraft as spacecraft." New Republic. November 14: 15-20.
3. Elliott, William R., and William J. Schenck-Hamlin. 1979. "Film. politics and the press: the influence of 'All the president's men.'" Journalism Quarterly (56): 546-53.
4. Kaiser. Robert G. 1983. "A movie won't win it for Glenn." Washington Post. October 23:C5.
5. Nimmo, Dan, and James E. Combs. 1983. Mediated Political Realities. New York: Longman.
6. Pollock, Dale. 1984. "Right Stuff wrong publicity'?" Washington Post. February 15: D3.
7. Variety. 1984. "Film boxoffice reports." Variety, February 29.

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