SMU State of the Union watch party testers rate President’s speech favorably

Last night, a group of Southern Methodist University students gathered to watch and evaluate President Bush’s State of the Union Address. A total of 30 communication and political science students watched the address and 15 of those students continuously registered their reactions to the President’s comments on Perception Analyzers. Perception Analyzers are an interactive feedback tool that instantly records unbiased feedback from a group through the use of wireless hand-held dials.

Overall, the audience gave Bush a relatively high evaluation of 71 out of 100, with Republicans giving Bush a score of 82, 37 for Democrats, and 58 for Independents. When asked to what degree Bush addressed issues that were important to them, viewers gave Bush a score of 66 out of 100.

The first area we examined was the audience’s live, moment-to-moment evaluation of the President’s speech. We polled the audience every second which allowed us to pinpoint the audience’s response to specific statements and policy proposals. In total, we polled each audience member over 3000 times during the 50 minute speech.

Bush received high marks when he praised the troops, focused on reducing the spread of AIDS in African and assisting Darfur, stated that healthcare decisions should be between patients and their doctors, and proposed reducing our dependence on foreign oil and increasing clean energy. The viewers responded most positively during the final 10 minutes of the speech when Bush told the stories of four heroes seated in the gallery.

In general, Bush’s specific proposals got little response as the audience favored broader statements. For example, when Bush spoke about victory in Iraq, the audience was favorable. Yet, when he got into the specifics of his plan, the audience response was negative.

Republicans and Democrats reacted differently to the President’s comments on most issues, with Republican viewers often trending over 70 and Democrats below 30. This disagreement occurred when the president addressed liability reform, increasing the military’s involvement in Iraq, the confirmation of judges, and the No Child Left Behind education policy.

We also compared the audience’s view of the president before the speech to their attitude after the speech, using a common set of measures including favorability and approval ratings. In these comparisons, Bush improved on every question. The audience’s overall rating of Bush increased from 45 before the speech to 54 afterwards on a 100 point scale. Bush also improved on a series of questions that measured the viewers’ feelings on the President’s image, including his sincerity (which moved from 4.4 to 5.0 on a 5 point scale), honesty (which moved from 4.2 to 4.7), believability (which moved from 4.0 to 4.5), and strength (which moved from 3.8 to 4.5).