Political communication and changing voter behaviors: A neuroscientific examination of wing shifts in generation Y and Z voters

In societies where democratic elections are held, political parties seek to gain the highest possible number of votes to acquire governing power or to influence governance. Therefore, they aim to both create and consolidate a group of people who feel a sense of affiliation to the party, as well as engage in persuasion activities to gain the votes of undecided voters. The main component of these persuasion processes is political communication activities. Political messages are the primary elements that influence the formation or change of opinions among voters. For this reason, the design of political messages has significant importance. Well-designed political messages have the power to manufacture consent among voters, while poorly designed messages are bound to lead to a crisis. It is not commonly expected or observed for voters who have party affiliation to vote for a party other than the one they feel allegiance to. For this reason, voters with party affiliation are also referred to as "core voters." Political parties predict that the voting behavior of voters affiliated with other parties will remain unchanged. Based on this assumption, all political parties aim to capture the votes of undecided voters, often referred to as "floating voters." In this study, the impact of specifically designed political messages on the decision processes of partisan voters, who constitute most of the total electorate, was explored through neuroscientific methods.