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Political advertising
The dominant form of candidate communication with the electorate
Political advertising
• “Televised political advertising is now the dominant form of communication between candidates and voters in the presidential elections and in most statewide contests”– Kaid, “Political advertising”
http://www.ciadvertising.org/student_account/fall_00/adv382j/derrellwilson/p2/politics.html
Eisenhower Answers America
Undecideds
• The ‘swing vote’ in elections is made up largely of those persons who are relatively ill-informed, have a less-developed ideology and are swayed by late events, advertising and non-policy news
• They often decide the elections, though, and are a major target of candidates– Going negative can work here
Content of political advertising
• Close analysis of the actual content of political advertising has been rather limited– Relatively recent area of study– Focused heavily on the presidential campaign
• Availability of historic advertising
• Most money, most sophisticated advertising
• Popular and scholarly focus on presidential contest
Issues v. images• Most advertising focuses on issues rather than image
– 78% of 2000 presidential campaign ads (historic high)
• However, “the percentage of spots with specific policy issue information was much lower than the overall number of issue spots”– Vague, general statements
– Claims without context (often misleading or even false)
• Researchers have come to conclude that the two are intertwined and inseparable
Issues
Proportion of ads emphasizing issues
Fear appeals
Bush 85% 19%
Kerry 79% 5%
2004 Issue Mentions (source: Kaid)
Kaid: “The Television Advertising Battleground in the 2004 Preseidential Election”
2004 Candidate character mentions (source: Kaid)
Negative v. positive
• There has been a significant increase in negativity over the last 30 years
Positive v. Negative
• Challengers are more likely to engage in negative advertising, while incumbents tend to be positive– Challenger criticizing record, incumbent defending it
• Attack ads are more common in competitive races – Most races against incumbents are long shots
• Negative ads are more likely to be sponsored by parties or advocacy groups
• Negative ads have more substantive issue information
Positive v. negative
• Positive ads tend to focus on the present or future
• Negative ads tend to focus on the past and express anger
2000 [all] elections(Wisconsin Ad Project)
Overall appeals
Ad themes 2004 (source: Kaid)
• http://pcl.stanford.edu/campaigns/2008/
• http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/
Attack ads 2004 (source: Kaid)
Personally attack opponent
Anonymous attack on opponent
Attack on issues
Bush 0% 95% 92%
Kerry 30% 62% 59%
Goldstein, “Lessons learned”
Emotion
• Commonly seen by professionals as the most important and effective appeal– People are not persuaded/moved by rational
appeals– Most political commercial use some form of
emotional appeal
Emotion
• The majority of political advertising relates in some way to emotion– Tony Schwartz– Frank Luntz
– What types of emotion are most often used?– Fear– Pride
• Especially national pride– Hope– Love
• Family
Appeals in presidential campaign advertising
Verbal content 2004
Emotion and cultural symbols• Common use of non-rational appeals• Clearly a successful strategy• Spots contain an enormous amount of emotional
content • “more emotional proof than logical or ethical
proof”• According to Hart “one must never underestimate
the importance of that which advertising most reliably delivers—political emotion”
Emotional appeals
• “Winners use more words indicating activity and optimism than losers. Losers, alternately, demonstrated less certainty but higher realism in their spots.”– Ballotti & Kaid, 2000
• http://pcl.stanford.edu/campaigns/2008/
• http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/
Incumbent strategies
Bush Kerry
Use of symbolic trappings 15% 0%
Presidency stands for legitimacy
12% 0%
Competency and the office
25% 5%
Charisma and the office 5% 0%
Emphasizing accomplishments
25% 12%
Above-the-trenches posture
7% 0%
Depending on surrogates to speak
5% 8%
Challenger strategies
Bush Kerry
Calling for changes 3% 59%
Speaking to traditional values
31% 13%
Taking the offensive position
19% 16%
Emphasizing optimism 31% 28%
Attacking the record of the opponent
61% 54%
Types of ads
• Diamond and Bates:– ID spots– Argument spots
• Candidate causes, ideas, concerns
– Attack spots– Visionary spots
Types of commercials
• Devlin– Talking heads
– Negative spots
– Cinema verite
– Documentary spots
– Man-in-the street spots
– Testimonials
– Independent spots
• Joslyn: “Benevolent leader” spots
Nonverbal content
Production techniquesBush Kerry
Computer graphics 92% 80%
Slow motion 24% 41%
Fast motion 15% 1%
Freeze frames 14% 14%
Split screens 17% 26%
Superimpositions 20% 13%
Use of stills 7% 30%
Black and white changes
26% 16%
Female candidates
• Female candidates tend to focus more on issues than men do, and to emphasize domestic issues– May be more due to greater number of
Democrats who are women than to gender
• http://www.rbistrategies.com/content/37/rbi-strategies-and-research-winspollierdquo-awards
• http://pcl.stanford.edu/campaigns/2008/
• http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/
• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2008/reportersblog/campaign_ads/