Dialsmith

 
During last night’s Presidential Debate, focus groups of voters in key states across the country were asked to view and log their real-time reactions to the debate performances of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump using our Perception Analyzer dials. The majority of the time, dial testing like this is done behind-the-scenes as a way for communicators and marketers to analyze and re-work messages, arguments or advertisements. But during high profile political events, such as last night’s debate, the curtain is raised and we get to see some of the results and analysis from these research sessions. Here are some highlights:

Drs. Rita Kirk and Dan Schill from @RealTimePolitic ran a group for CNN News in Orlando, Florida, which was live streamed and then discussed post debate by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Here’s Frank Luntz on CBS News, discussing the dial results from the focus group he ran in Philadelphia.

A great Washington Post article with results from a dial testing study conducted on the Hofstra University campus by Dr. Charlton McIlwain, associate professor of media, culture and communications at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and Dr. Philip Dalton, associate professor and chair of the Department of Rhetoric at Hofstra University. Their study analyzed the real-time reactions to the Presidential Debate of a focus group made up of both African-American and white college students.

And here’s an interview by Brian Lehrer from New York public radio, WNYC, with Dr. McIlwain and some of the students participating in the study.

To track additional results and analysis from the Presidential and upcoming Vice Presidential debates, follow us on Twitter at @Dialsmith.

Images courtesy of CNN.