Vocabulary Terms—Political Parties, Interest Groups and the Mass Media
Adversarial press
Australian ballot
Backgrounds story (news)
Battleground state
Beauty contest
Blanket primary
Boycott
Caucus
Climate control
Closed primary
Coattail effect
Communications director
Congressional campaign
committee
Corrupt practices acts
Credentials committee
Critical or realigning periods
Dealighnment
Democratic Party
Direct technique
Divided government
Elector
Electoral College
Equal time rule
Era of Good Feelings
Factions
Fairness doctrine
Feature stories
Finance chairperson
Focus group
Free rider problem
Front-loading
Front-runner
General election
Gerrymandering
Get out the Vote (GOTV)
Hard money
Hatch act
Ideological interest groups
Ideological party
Incentive
Incumbent
Independent
Independent expenditure
Indirect technique
Insider stories
Interest group
Issue advocacy advertising
Labor movement
Latent interests
Loaded language
Lobby
Lobbyist
Malapportionment
Market (television)
Material incentive
Muckraker
Mugwumps or progressives
National committee
National convention
Office-bloc (Massachusetts)
ballot
Open primary
Party identification
Party organization
Party platform
Party-column (Indiana) ballot
Party-in-government
Party-in-the-electorate
Patronage
Personal following
Plurality
Plurality system
Political action committee
(PAC)
Political consultant
Political cue
Political editorializing rule
Political machine
Political party
Pollster
Position issue
Presidential primary
Press secretary
Prospective voting
Public interest
Public-interest lobby
Purposive incentive
Ratings
Rational ignorance effect
Realignment
Registration
Republican Party
Retrospective voting
Reverse-income effect
Right-of-reply rule
Routine stories
Run-off primary
Safe seat
Selective attention
Service sector
Social movement
Soft money
Solidary incentive
Sophomore surge
Sound bite
Spin
Spin doctors
Splinter party
Split ticket
Sponsored party
State central committee
Straight ticket
Straight-ticket voting
Super PAC
Superdelegate
Swing voters
Third party
Ticket splitting
Tipping
Tracking poll
Trial balloon
Two-party system
Unit rule
Valence issue
Voter turnout
Whig Party
IMPROVE YOUR VOCABULARY AND MAKE CONNECTIONS!!
Consider using one of the following strategies to improve your understanding of the vocabulary terms in this
unit and to create connections to the topics/concepts covered:

Concept Sort – to use this strategy, place words into different categories based on each word's
meaning. Define categories based on your reading and on class discussion. When this strategy is used
after reading, you can self-assess your understanding of the concepts presented.

Frayer Model – this technique requires you to (1) define the target vocabulary words or concepts, and
(2) apply this information by generating examples and non-examples; this strategy promotes critical
thinking and helps you to identify and understand unfamiliar vocabulary; this strategy draws on your
prior knowledge to build connections among new concepts and creates a visual reference by which you
learn to compare attributes and examples.
Definition
Facts
Word/Concept
Examples
Non-examples