Attention,Perception, and Perceived Effects: Negative Political Advertising in a Battleground State of the 2004 Presidential Election

Based on a statewide telephone survey before the 2004 presidential election, this study probes Ohioans' attention to and perception of campaign advertising and the perceived effects of those negative political ads. Citizens in this “battleground” state had a very high level of awareness of campaign advertising, characterizing it as more negative than in the past. Self-reported attention to the campaign and measured use of local and national television news were related to perceived campaign negativity. Evidence of a third-person effect regarding a specific type of negative advertising was found. However, the effect was moderated by candidate choice.     

I Approve This Message: Effects of Sponsorship,Ad Tone,and Reactance in 2008 Presidential Advertising

This experiment (N = 198), conducted just before the 2008 presidential election, set out to examine the effects of tone and sponsorship in current political advertising, the first such study since campaign law began requiring candidates to approve their ads explicitly. In another first, we also examined the role of reactance in responses to political advertising. With regard to tone, positive ads received higher ad evaluation and cognitive response valence scores and less reactance than negative ads, but negative ads led to a greater likelihood of turning out to vote. Moreover, those without a strong candidate preference were more likely to vote for a candidate supported by a negative ad. Sponsorship had little effect on its own, but there were some intriguing interactions with political knowledge such that high-knowledge respondents had less reactance and lower opponent ratings, whereas moderate-knowledge respondents had the opposite reaction. We also found that reactance appears to play a major role in the effects of political advertising. It was associated directly with more negative cognitive responses, ad, and candidate evaluations and indirectly with lower intention to vote for the candidate supported by the ad, but it had no relationship with intent to turn out to vote.     

Using mass media in the presidential primaries: Effects on candidate issue knowledge and confidence in judging candidate viability

The role of mass media in the presidential primaries has not been examined in the same fashion as in the presidential general elections, congressional elections, and gubernatorial elections. This study is based on a survey (face‐to‐face interviews) of 392 adults randomly selected from a city with a population of 444,000 during the 1996 presidential primaries. The results of the hierarchical multiple regression analyses show that television news programs increase learning about candidate issue policies. People's confidence in judging which candidate has a better chance to win the party's nomination is influenced by reading of newspaper campaign stories, viewing of the campaign commercials, and their attention to the campaign news on TV. This study enriches our understanding of media effects in the presidential primaries.     

Modeling the Effects of Political Information Source Use and Online Expression on Young Adults’ Political Efficacy

This online survey conducted at a public university in the Northwest (N = 434) examines the influence of political involvement, information source attention, and online political discussion on young adults’ political efficacy. A factor analysis indicated that political information sources loaded into three factors including conventional and online hard news media such as newspapers, opinion and social media such as blogs or social networking websites, and public affairs websites including government and candidate websites. A path analysis revealed significant differences in their association with online political expression and external efficacy. As an entry point in the theoretical model, involvement in public affairs positively associated with attention to political information sources, online political expression, and external political efficacy. Attention to hard news and to public affairs websites positively predicted political efficacy. Attention to online opinion and social media and to public affairs websites positively predicted online political expression.     

Intermedia Agenda-Setting and Political Activism: MoveOn.org and the 2008 Presidential Election

This study tested for intermedia agenda-setting effects among explicitly partisan news media coverage and political activist group, citizen activist, and official campaign advertisements on YouTube—all in support of the same candidate. The setting for this investigation was the political activist organization MoveOn.org's “Obama in 30 Seconds” online ad contest, which was held during the 2008 U.S. presidential election primaries. The data provided evidence of first- and second-level agenda-setting relationships. Partial correlations revealed that the citizen activist issue agenda, as articulated in the contest ads, was most strongly related to the partisan media coverage, rather than to the issue priorities of the official Obama or MoveOn.org ads on YouTube. These results extend the intermedia agenda-setting framework to political activist communication efforts and consumer-generated content.     

A functional analysis of political advertising across media, 1998

This study applied the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to 118 political advertisements (television spots, newspaper ads, direct mail, and WWW pages) from 1998. Acclaims (self‐praise; positive statements) were the most common function (84%), followed by attacks (criticism, negative statements; 15%). Defenses (refutation of attacks) were relatively infrequent (1%). There were some differences by medium (WWW pages had the most acclaims, while television spots had the most attacks; no defenses occurred on WWW pages or in direct mail) but these functions are consistent both across media and with prior research on presidential campaign advertising. Incumbents produced more acclaims than challengers, who attacked more than incumbents. Finally, policy utterances were more common than character utterances in all media but www pages. The overall consistency in Junctions and topics across media and across levels of campaigns (presidential and non‐presidential) strongly suggests the existence of important situational influences on political campaign advertising. These findings can be useful for practitioners, theorists, and critics of campaign discourse.     

The Prevention Effect of Third-Person Perception: A Study on the Perceived and Actual Influence of Polls

This study ties the third-person effect phenomenon to social comparison research by positing that a downward comparison is made when people regard “others” as more influenced than themselves by persuasive messages. A likely consequence of the downward comparison is prevention behavior, which refers to the attempt to avoid undesirable outcomes. Hence we can expect a negative relationship between perceived influence of messages on others and actual influence of the messages on self. This negative relationship should be particularly likely to exist among less efficacious individuals. Utilizing a survey experiment (N = 800), which examined both the perceived and actual influence of opinion poll findings on people's issue opinions, this study shows that the prevention effect does not exist across the board, but there is enough evidence showing its existence among less efficacious people on certain issues.     

Effects of Negative Political Advertising on Individuals' Cynicism and Self-Efficacy: The Impact of Ad Type and Message Exposures

Prior research has indicated that exposure to negative political advertising can foster among individuals feelings of alienation, distrust, and apathy toward government or the political process. However, investigation regarding the amount of exposure to such advertising and the form in which it is presented remains scant. This experimental study examined the impact of ad type (character based vs. issue based) and amount of advertising exposures on individuals' cynicism and perceived self-efficacy in relation to the government. Results indicated that issue-based attack ads aired during the 2004 presidential election led to greater cynicism and lower self-efficacy than did character-based attack ads. A significant interaction revealed that the difference on the self-efficacy measure was greatest at the highest exposure level, indicating that continual exposure to ads dealing with governmental policies may nurture the perception that the political process is overly complex, which subsequently can decrease individuals' beliefs that they can make a difference.     

Individual Motivations and Information Source Relevance in Political Decision Making

This study explored citizens' political involvement, their attention to candidates ' issue stands or personal qualities, and their evaluations of the relevance of different sources of information to political decision making. A telephone survey of a random sample (N = 420) of registered voters in a Southwestern city indicated that involvement did not associate with evaluations of the relevance of newspapers or television news to political decision making and negatively associated with evaluations of the relevance of advertising to political decision making. In addition, respondents ' attention to candidates 'personal qualities positively associated with evaluations of advertising relevance to political decision making, whereas their attention to candidates ' issue stands positively associated with their evaluations of the relevance of interpersonal communication to political decision making. These results suggest that involved voters receive little benefit from political advertisements, whereas voters who attend to candidate images find them informative. Interpersonal communication is an especially important source of election information for highly involved voters and for voters who attend to candidate issues.     

Media Multitasking,Second Screening,and Political Knowledge: Task-Relevant and Task-Irrelevant Second Screening during Election News Consumption

This study tests the role of second screening during election news consumption in factual political knowledge. Data from an online survey conducted before the 2016 U.S. presidential election show that task-irrelevant second screening during election news consumption on television is negatively related to factual political knowledge, whereas the influence of task-relevant second screening is positive. Data also show that the relationships between task-relevant and task-irrelevant second screening and factual political knowledge are moderated by how much attention one pays to election news on television.     

An Entrance for the Uninterested: Who Watches Soft News and How Does It Affect Their Political Participation?

As soft news shows in television present politics in an entertaining format, they are likely to attract and grab the attention of people who do not have a high interest in politics. Consequently, soft news might mobilize these citizens to engage in politics. This study tests this potential by using a 2-wave panel survey among a national sample of voters (N = 2,680) collected in relation to the 2015 National Election in Denmark. The results show that people with lower political interest were indeed more likely to increase their use of soft news during the election campaign and that, as a consequence, these low-motivated people also increased their passive participation, such as seeking additional information about the election. Further, the results show that this type of passive participation is likely to function as a stepping-stone to active forms of participation, such as attending political events or contacting politicians.     

Americanization of Korean political advertising

This study explores televised political ads in the 1992 presidential election in the US and Korea to determine whether Korean political advertising follows American campaign styles—the findings are that it does. More specifically, the results demonstrated few differences between the two groups. However, some deep‐seated Korean cultural values still remain distinct in terms of negative advertising use and the category of ethical appeals. The conclusion is that the dominance of American campaign styles may be present in a global context beyond Western societies.     

Intermedia Agenda Setting in Television,Advertising, and Blogs During the 2004 Election

This study examined whether the candidate-controlled public relations tools of political ads and candidate blogs were successful in influencing the issue and news agenda of the major television news networks during the 2004 presidential election. Data showed strong correlations between blogs and the media agenda. Advertisements did not correlate with the media agenda. Cross-lag analyses showed that the media set the candidates' agenda. The authors suggest intermedia agenda setting occurred as the media transferred their agenda to campaign blogs.     

The party agendas in the 1992 Taiwan legislative election a content analysis of the Television Political party Advertisements (TPPA)

With a research design that combines a content analysis of the 1992 Television Political Party Advertising (TPPA) and a public opinion survey, this study not only examines the issue agendas of the two major political parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in their political ads, but also investigates the match between the public agenda and the party issue agendas in the 1992 legislative election. In addition, the types of, and appeals and semantic frames in, the political ads were analysed.

Study results showed that ‘single issue theory’ was reflected in the Taiwanese television political ads. Both the KMT and the DPP put emphasis on only just a few issues rather than a plethora of issues. The KMT agenda was found to match the public agenda better than did the DPP agenda. However, the DPP performed better than the KMT in terms of the campaign strategy of their political advertising. Like most incumbents, the KMT favoured positive ads and the DPP, like most opposition parties, favoured negative ads. But the DPP adroitly employed indirect attack in negative ads which helped avoid possible audience backfire. By contrast, the KMT ads failed to break free with past cliched ads.     

The effects of appeal types and candidates' poll rankings in negative political advertising

This paper combines the persuasion knowledge model (PKM) and priming theory to investigate the effects of different appeal types in negative political ads on voters' cognitive responses and candidate responses, and explore the moderating effect of an important candidate-related variable: poll ranking. The results indicate that negative advertising based on rational appeals is more beneficial to candidates who lag in the polls. However, negative ads based on emotional appeals generate better responses from voters when used by poll leaders. These effects are observed regardless of whether the race is between an incumbent and a challenger or two challengers.     

The role of communication in the formation of an issue-based citizenry

Citizens can gain a better understanding of the important issues of a campaign and where candidates stand on those issues from three primary sources: direct candidate-to-citizen mass media messages (e.g., political advertisements, debates), news (e.g., newspapers, television news), or discussion with fellow citizens. The current study conducted a secondary analysis of 1996 American National Election Study (ANES) data to replicate Brians and Wattenberg's (1996) findings concerning the relative influence of political advertisements, television news use, and newspaper use on voter issue knowledge and salience in the 1992 United States presidential campaign. We also analyzed two additional communication information sources, general political discussion and debate viewing. The effects of political advertisement recall, television news viewing, and newspaper use replicated across election studies. General political discussion was found to affect both issue knowledge and salience, and when introduced into the regression analyses nullifies the predictive power of political advertisement recall for knowledge. Talk's influence on salience wanes in subsequent analyses. Viewing the first debate was a strong predictor of issue knowledge, but was not associated with issue salience. Advertisement recall maintained predictive power for issue salience even after taking into account the other four information sources, and watching the second debate also predicted salience. The combination of results presents evidence that candidate-to-citizen and citizen-to-citizen communication play unique roles in determining levels of issue knowledge and salience.     

Partisans and Controversial News Online: Comparing Perceptions of Bias and Credibility in News Content From Blogs and Mainstream Media

Based on the hostile media effect (HME), this 2 (partisan opinion) × 2 (news source) × 2 (content valence) factorial experiment investigated how partisans (N = 132), in terms of perceived bias and credibility, assess same-sex marriage coverage by either an online mainstream news source or a citizen blog. Partisans who disagreed with the content's valence evaluated both mainstream online news and the blog posting as more biased and less credible than did partisans who agreed with the content's valence. The perceived reach of blog postings appears to generate a relative HME similar to that triggered by mainstream news. In particular, this study suggests that user-generated content—specifically blog postings—might generate a stronger relative HME than that observed with mainstream news.     

Network Adwatches: Policing the 1996 Primary and General Election Presidential Ads

This article presents a content analysis of 93 televised adwatches that appeared on ABC, NBC, and CBS network evening news programs during either the 1996 presidential primary (n = 40) or general election campaign (n = 53). Since the media's role in a democracy often is highlighted by its responsibility to provide citizens with information needed to make informed and rational decisions, this article analyzes political adwatches in regard to the social responsibility theory of the press. Findings indicate that CBS Evening News journalists did a better job at incorporating adwatch recommendations suggested by academicians to improve voter understanding about potentially misleading advertising con tent. However, content analysis of 298 primary and general election presidential candidate ads revealed that television journalists did not identify or discuss ethically suspect technological manipulations present in a large percentage of the 1996 spots.     

First and second-level agenda-setting in the 2014 Indian general election: a time-series analysis of party-media relation

The role of the press as a political watchdog is crucial to the functioning of democracy. Especially in the run-up to elections, voters depend on the media's presentation of parties and candidates to make informed, responsible choices at the ballot box. But who, then, influences the news media? Empirical evidence in the United States and Europe suggests that political party campaigns and election coverage in the news media are interconnected and influence each other. This study tests whether such agenda-setting effects between party campaigns and the media also take place in the general elections in the world's largest democracy, India. India's western-type political system has a distinct media system characterized by high competition, diversification, non-consolidation and formal and informal ties between the media, commercial interests and political actors. Content analysis and Granger's causality test of newspaper coverage (N?=?716) and party campaign messages (N?=?458) found that agenda-setting effects do occur in India, but are largely bi-directional. We also found an overwhelming focus of both newspapers’ election coverage and of all major party campaigns on one single candidate, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Narendra Modi. This, we argue, is a result of the broader trends that have shaped Indian politics in recent years. The significant correlations and non-significant causal effects between party campaign and media coverage also indicate a trade-off situation between political power negotiation and political balance in the press.     

Public opinion and political outspokenness in pre‐1997 Hong Kong: Two tests of the spiral of silence theory

This study analyses the impact of perceptions of the opinions of others on political outspokenness in Hong Kong. Based on the results of two representative telephone surveys conducted in Hong Kong in 1993 and 1995, the spiral of silence theory is tested in the context of public opinion regarding the Sino‐British dispute over Hong Kong's political future and the 1995 Legislative Council election. As hypothesized, respondents in both surveys were more willing to voice their political opinions publicly when they perceived the majority opinion to be on their side, or when they perceived a trend in support of their own political viewpoint. However, this effect was observed only for respondents who were not much concerned about either issue. People's political outspokenness was primarily boosted by higher issue salience, more exposure and attention to television news and news magazines, and higher political interest and efficacy.