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.