Gamer Survey: Obama on Top

The study was in early 1984 (prior to Reagan's reelection bid) and covered 3 counties of western New York - Cattaraugus, Erie, and Chataqua - with all the public schools and SUNY system colleges involved. It was the second one of its kind with the first one being conducted in early 1980 when Carter was up for re-election. There was a third done in 1988 but I was no longer a Law student and was not involved with it. Whether you call my opinion garbage is one thing, but the study was not.

As for your name-recognition statement, that is supported by what I wrote. It is indeed a big factor. It's not at all the only factor. The conclusions we were working on followed the lines of what I paraphrased above, but name recognition is definitely a part of that whole flow. The numbers also had direct correlation to the amount of broadcast advertising time each candidate bought on average in each county market. But, it did not correlate with newspaper advertising, which definitely linked to age since it is completely unlikely that a child will read a newspaper ad unless it is strategically placed in the Comics.

I never called the study garbage; it's your conclusion that is garbage.
None of the things you just said support this statement you made: "Younger folks fear change and see the president as an office that should be stable (completely unconsiously)."

Your conclusion does not follow the evidence.
The fact that broadcast advertising had a positive correlation to votes received only serves to support the fact that name recognition is probably the most influential factor when it comes to polls.

Unless a person has done research on a candidate and knows the issues, they're more likely to vote for the incumbent simply because that's the name they know. The only thing that would sway this is if they had some reason to feel negatively about the incumbent.

That's why you get results like Nexon's poll where the incumbent takes a vast majority of the polled voted for the incumbent while the next 'runner-up' is "I don't care".

PS. Your conclusion about the newspaper advertisements is also flawed. Unless you did a simultaneous study that covered ages beyond, you can't properly conclude whether spending in newspaper ads was ineffective for the younger age groups because of their age or because newspaper ads are inherently less effective.