Effects of Political Advertising in the 2008 Presidential Campaign

Abstract

Political advertising remains the communication format that dominates presidential campaign budgets. In 2008 Obama’s success in fund-raising resulted in record expenditures on political television advertising. This experimental study tested the effects of viewing a sample of Obama and McCain ads with 1,165 young citizens at 19 locations throughout the United States. Results indicated young citizens learned significantly more about the issue positions of both McCain and Obama than they learned about their personal qualities when viewing the ads. Whereas viewing the ads also resulted in a significant increase in the evaluation of Obama, evaluations of McCain significantly decreased after viewing. Viewing the ads significantly increased levels of political information efficacy, making young citizens more confident that they possessed the information and knowledge necessary to participate in the political system. The experiments also isolated gender differences that suggested young female citizens learned more about the candidates’ issues and personal qualities than did males.