Comparative Study on Negative Political Advertisements with Specific Focus on Attack and Rebuttal Television Campaigns from Indian Perspective

Abstract

Nowadays, in Indian political system, it is common for the political parties to use the negative political advertisements to denigrate the opponent political party. Normally, such attacks are responded with the use of similar media either by retaliating or with putting fresh charges on the attacker. In this article, an experiment has been conducted in an Indian state ‘Gujarat’ to compare the effect of attack and rebuttal types of political television campaigns. After considering the literature pertaining to negative political advertisement, this research addresses four related issues. The first and second objectives of this study are to compare the effect of attack and rebuttal type of advertisements on attitude towards advertisement and political party subsequently. The third objective is to compare attack and rebuttal type of advertisements on the basis of intrusiveness effect. The final objective is to compare impact of both types of negative advertisements on intention to vote for sponsoring political party. The results indicate that the ‘attack advertisements’ prove effective in changing the attitude of citizens and intention to vote. The results of the study have practical implications for practitioners of political advertising and consultants of political campaigns. It will help them to create a link between voters’ attitudinal responses and creation of effective campaign strategies.