Negative Political Advertising Research Articles

Polarizing the Donorate: Charitable Giving and Negative Political Advertisements

ABSTRACT Does inflammatory political rhetoric undermine the voluntary provision of public goods? This paper addresses this question by combining Form 990 data on charitable giving with Wesleyan Media Project data on political advertising and a text-based measure of charity ideology. Attack advertising creates political polarization, which discourages giving to ideological charities, and encourages giving to non-ideological charities. These results suggest that divisive political rhetoric may actually strengthen nonpartisan civil society.

An Experimental Study of the Effectiveness of Negative Campaign Messaging: Will Outcome Framing Work for Partisans in Polarised Politics?

The current study focuses on the use of outcome framing as a strategic negative message tactic and its impact on partisans. Specifically, this study theorises that the impact of partisan cues such as party affiliation is moderated by differently framed claims in negative political advertising. Participants viewed a negative ad, varying in outcome framing (negative ramifications of electing the targeted candidate versus positive consequences of defeating the target) and partisan matching (in-party versus out-party). Participants were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Experiment 1 ( N = 96), where a Republican candidate was the target of a negative ad, revealed that the persuasiveness of a loss-framed negative ad significantly increased in the out-party versus in-party condition. Experiment 2 ( N = 123), where a Democratic candidate was the target of a negative ad, found that a loss framed-negative ad was significantly more influential than a gain-framed negative ad in both in-party and out-party conditions. Implications exist for design and practice of negative campaign messaging.

Beliefs and Attitude towards Political Advertising During Malaysia's GE14 Political Tsunami

The recent General Election in Malaysia has seen the opposition alliance form the government for the first time in its history. The tsunami that changed the country's political landscape has largely been attributed to the participation of young voters and the effect of political advertising transmitted through social media. Drawing upon the theory of reasoned action, the study tests the scale of beliefs about political advertising in relation to attitude towards political advertising among young voters. While the first phase of the study validated the belief components, the second phase tested and confirmed the effect of the belief components on attitude. As a result, three belief components of political advertising were extracted, including core values, actual values,andexternal values. The findings indicated that young Malaysian voters hold unfavourablebeliefs aboutpolitical advertising. Moreover, the beliefs about advertising’s core and external values have a direct effect on attitude towards political advertising. Given young voters use social media for nearly every aspect of their lives, the findings underscore the importance of understanding the potential effect of negative political advertising and its external elements during election campaigns.

ԹԻՐԱԽԱՎՈՐՈՂ ՔԱՂԱՔԱԿԱՆ ԳՈՎԱԶԴՆԵՐԻ ՕԳՏԱԳՈՐԾՈՒՄԸ ՀԱՅԱՍՏԱՆՈՒՄ 2021Թ․ ԱՐՏԱՀԵՐԹ ԽՈՐՀՐԴԱՐԱՆԱԿԱՆ ԸՆՏՐՈՒԹՅՈՒՆՆԵՐԻ ՔԱՐՈԶԱՐՇԱՎԻ ԸՆԹԱՑՔՈՒՄ/THE USE OF NEGATIVE POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENTS DURING THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN OF THE 2021 SNAP PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN ARMENIA/ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕ НЕГАТИВНОЙ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ РЕКЛАМЫ ВО ВРЕМЯ ПРЕДВЫБОРНОЙ КАМПАНИИ ДОСРОЧНЫХ ПАРЛАМЕНТСКИХ ВЫБОРОВ 2021 ГОДА В АРМЕНИИ

Twenty-five political forces participated in the 2021 snap parliamentary elections, four of which were alliances. Political forces have organized rallies, meetings with voters in Yerevan and in the regions, as well as used political technologies on social media platforms. The electoral campaign was distinguished by the variety of political advertisements. Some political forces have paid special attention to negative advertisements targeting political opponents. Unlike previous campaigns, the number of negative political advertisements had increased significantly. The article particularly refers to the political spots of the "I have honor" and "Armenia" blocs and the "Civil Contract" party, which, unlike other political forces, used more negative advertisements. The analysis showed that the opposition blocs preferred to use negative ads to target Nikol Pashinyan, the candidate for prime minister of the "Civil Contract" party, while the above-mentioned party, on the contrary, used the negative political ads to target the second and third presidents of Armenia, putting emphasis on direct and indirect targeting, creation an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty and discretization of political opponents.

Social movement–voter interaction: a case study of electoral communication by The People’s Assembly Against Austerity in the UK

ABSTRACT This article uses qualitative content analysis to investigate the role of the communicative tactics used by the UK campaign group, The People’s Assembly Against Austerity, to reach voters in the 2015 and the 2017 general elections. It focuses on the heuristic of trust and analyses the language of the tactics used by the group as they campaigned against the policies of the governments at the time. Analysis reveals that in both elections The People’s Assembly employed existing electoral campaigning strategies, such as negative campaigning and political advertising, alongside novel tactics such as a protest song, that were all aimed at the voter and sought to shine a light on the pro-austerity policies of the incumbent Conservative government. This pattern shows that a group within the broader UK anti-austerity social movement was actively engaging in the parliamentary political process in an attempt to communicate with voters. What this insight does is emphasise the role of social movement communication in electoral campaigning and posits the dimension of ‘social movement–voter interaction’, which largely remains absent in both the fields of social movement research and political communication.

Measuring Emotional Responses to Negative Commercials: A Comparison of Two Methods

We compare two alternative measures for assessing people’s emotional reactions to political stimuli: the traditional self-report measure and facial expression analysis. We recruited participants to take part in a study examining reactions to a set of negative political commercials aired during the 2018 elections. We compare people’s self-reporting of their emotional reactions to negative political advertisements with their expressed emotion, according to the facial expression analysis. We find the discriminant validity of the facial expression analysis is higher than the self-report measure. Second, the self-report and facial expression measures of emotion have little convergent validity: we fail to find a consistent and strong positive correlation between the self-report and facial software measures of the same emotion and the same political advertisement. Third, the facial software measure has better predictive validity than the self-report measure, generating better predictions for the three dependent variables examined: changes in political interest, changes in people’s confidence in elected officials, and people’s assessment of the tone of the senate campaign.

Stealing Thunder in Negative Political Advertising: The Persuasive Impact of One-sided and Two-sided Negative Messages on Partisan Individuals

Although two-sided persuasion is a common technique in political speeches, few research has reported the relative persuasiveness of a one-versus two-sided message in the context of negative political advertising. Participants ( N = 116) viewed a negative political ad, varying in message sidedness (one-sided vs. two-sided) and partisan match (partisan-match vs. partisan-mismatch vs. unaffiliated). Multivariate results revealed the relative advantage of two-sided persuasion in the partisan-match condition where participants viewed a negative ad targeting their supporting party candidate. One-sided persuasion was more effective in the partisan-mismatch condition where participants viewed a negative ad criticizing the opposition party candidate. Implications for the practice of strategic negative political campaigns were discussed.

유머 소구를 이용한 네거티브 정치광고 효과 연구 : 광고 유형과 정치 관여도의 조절 효과를 중심으로

본 연구는 네거티브 정치광고 유형(이슈ᐨ정책형, 이미지형)에 따른 유머 소구의 광고 효과를 측정하고 이를 바탕으로 정치 관여도가 높은 유권자와 낮은 유권자들의 광고에 대한 태도, 후보자에 대한 이미지 등이 어떻게 형성되는지 알아보는 것을 목적으로 한다. 이를 검증하기 위해 2(네거티브 정치광고 유형: 이슈ᐨ정책형, 이미지형) × 2(유머 소구의 유무) × 2(유권자의 정치 관여도: 고, 저) 형식의 피험자 간 요인 실험 설계를 실시했다. 연구 결과, 정치 관여도가 낮은 응답자의 경우에는 이슈와 이미지 광고 모두 유머 소구가 포함되어 있는 경우가 후보자에 대한 이미지, 광고에 대한 태도, 후보자에 대한 기억에서 긍정적인 효과를 보였다. 반면, 정치 관여도가 높은 응답자의 경우에는 네거티브 정치광고 유형에 따라 광고 효과에 차이를 나타냈다. 특히 이슈ᐨ정책형 네거티브 정치광고를 접할 때는 유머 소구가 포함되어 있지 않은 경우 후보자에 대한 이미지, 광고에 대한 태도, 후보자에 대한 기억에 긍정적 효과를 보였다. 이처럼 네거티브 정치광고에 유머소구를 활용하는 경우, 응답자의 정치 관여도 수준에 따라 효과 차이가 발생한다는 결과를 향후 선거 캠페인 전략으로 활용함으로써 유권자들의 정치적 의사 결정 과정 참여에 있어 긍정적인 영향을 끼칠 수 있을 것으로 기대한다.

How Encouraging Niceness Can Incentivize Nastiness: An Unintended Consequence of Advertising Reform

Enacted in an effort to discourage negative political advertising, American regulations mandate that candidates endorse their ads (“My name is ___, and I approve this message.”). Four studies suggest that mandatory endorsements enhance the perceived credibility of some ads these regulations were designed to discourage. This research tests for what types of messages mandatory endorsements have this effect, and why. Mandatory endorsements boosted evaluations of policy-focused attack ads—those typically plagued by overcomeable skepticism—but had no consistent effect on positive or character-focused ads. Mandatory endorsements boost ad believability—largely outside of participants' awareness—for two reasons: (1) the tagline offers a legitimizing association with regulation and (2) the candidates' own personally delivered endorsement language offers an implicit promise of the ads' truth value. The authors discuss how these findings bring order to and extend previous work on mandatory endorsements and ironic effects of communications requirements. Finally, they consider how regulations could be reformed to promote the public good by informing (without misleading) the electorate.

Uticaj sadržaja argumenata na pojavu bumerang-efekta negativnih političkih reklama

The so-called 'boomerang effect' of negative political advertising is an unwanted backlash effect of a negative statement about the opponent that reflects more unfavourably on the sponsor than the intended target of such a negative ad. The inconsistency of previous findings on the appearance of the boomerang effect of negative political advertisements calls for shedding new light on the 'boomerang effect' and the justification of the stigmatization of negative political advertisements themselves. The aim of the study is to examine the effect of the content of arguments of printed negative political ads on the 'boomerang effect' in voters with high levels of situational political involvement, who are in general not politically involved. The emerging of the boomerang effect was analysed by using the Elaboration Likelihood Model. An experimental design 2 (candidate status: sponsor - target of the ad) x 2 (content of the argument of a negative political ad: political platform - personal characteristics of the target) has been applied. The boomerang effect has been confirmed, both for the arguments relating to the political platform and the arguments of a negative political ad related to the personal characteristics of the candidates. The boomerang effect was stronger for the arguments based upon the political platform of the target. In addition, both the sponsor and the target were evaluated less favourably based on the negative ad with the personal characteristics of the target. The obtained findings confirm that in political persuasive communication one should not apply negative ads, especially not the strategy of evoking personal characteristics of the political opponents (targets) in negative connotation, not just due to the boomerang effect, but also due to the overall negative effect on the voters in general.

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

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.

Does negative campaign advertising stimulate uncivil communication on social media? Measuring audience response using big data

Using the 2012 presidential election as a case study, this work set out to understand the relationship between negative political advertising and political incivility on Twitter. Drawing on the stimulation hypothesis and the notion that communication with dissimilar others can encourage incivility, it was predicted that (1) heightened levels of negative campaign advertising would be associated with increased citizen activity on Twitter, (2) increased citizen activity would predict online incivility, and (3) that increases in citizen activity would facilitate a positive indirect relationship between negative advertising volume and citizen incivility. This theoretical model was tested using data collected from over 140,000 individual Twitter users located in 206 Designated Market Areas. The results supported the proposed model. Additional analyses further suggested that the relationship between negative political advertising and citizen incivility was conditioned by contextual levels of economic status. These results are discussed in the context of political advertising and democratic deliberation.

Partisanship and Perceptions of Fairness: Ignoring the Facts

AbstractThis paper employs survey experiments to examine how contextualizing the claims made in negative political advertising affects perceptions of their fairness. This has implications for the components of fairness judgments, e.g., if “truth” is a component of fairness, being informed that a claim is untrue should undermine perceptions of its fairness, as well as for the efficacy of “fact-checking.” Our experiments on a random national telephone sample show some effects of being informed that a claim is untrue but few if it is characterized as taken out of context or as irrelevant. These findings imply that: (a) while evaluations of the truth of claims appear to be a component of fairness, considerations such as whether claims are the “whole story” or “relevant” to the decision at hand do not, and (b) contextualizing of the claims of ads in fact-checks has very little impact on perceptions of their fairness.

Folly 2012! The Campaign for Foolishness in Twenty-First-Century Politics

By examining twenty-first-century negative political advertisements alongside Shakespearean fools and Erasmian folly, we can read attack ads not as barren clichés but as parables about the slippages—between subject and object, villain and hero, insider and outsider—that make possible more-generous appraisals of folly and that offer glimpses of a humanist program based on folly's benevolence. When we read such ads as Erasmian gestures—more than that, when we recognize our entanglements in the foolish maneuverings of our political leaders—we confront the possibility that giving in to the incongruities of folly is more productive than insisting on a knowing, superior sufficiency. To recognize the incapacitating, unconventional properties of folly is to affirm what is alluring, even precious, about rhetorical philosophies that favor not orderly, intelligible communities but profoundly, dramatically—laughably—indistinct ones.

(Mis)Information and the Electorate: The Dynamics and Individual Level Effects of Political Advertising Claims

This paper provides the first systematic examination of the relationship between the accuracy of the claims made in political advertising and political knowledge and turnout. Political advertising, especially negative political advertising, has been the focus of a lot of attention in political psychology and political communication over the last two decades: the 8-year period between Lau et al.’s (1999, 2007) two meta-analyses saw the number of studies more than double. In addition, Lau et al. note that the methodological rigor of this research has improved considerably. Conventional wisdom has evolved from Ansolabehere and Iyengar’s (1995) claim that negative advertising depresses turnout at elections, particularly among Independents, to arguments that negative advertising either has no unique effects on the electorate (Krasno and Green 2008), or that it often boosts turnout because of its denser content, greater need to back up its claims, and dramatic elevation of the stakes at elections (Franz et al. 2008).This research has, however, steered clear of the question of what such putative gains in knowledge or turnout represent, e.g., whether an enhanced ability to list likes and dislikes of a candidate and vote is based on accurate or inaccurate information, a more important issue to the quality of American democracy than whether turnout goes up or down. In this paper, which is the first of its kind, we endeavour to answer this question. We examine two relationships: between the accuracy of ad information and 1) political knowledge and 2) turnout. We focus on presidential advertising nationwide in the 2008 election, using three sources of data: our analysis of the accuracy of the claims made in all the presidential ads aired (which we purchased through VMS); turnout figures by DMA, aggregated from county level turnout data; and data from the Annenberg Survey that allow us to look at individual-level relationships with turnout and political knowledge over time, and at the psychological mediators of those relationships such as political efficacy. We coded more than 300 presidential ads and the accuracy of almost 1600 issue and trait claims.Beyond its implications for understanding of the impact of political advertising, our paper is also relevant to the theme of the conference in that the digital revolution has spawned a growth in “fact-checking” of ads, both through dedicated websites such as factcheck.org and through online media outlets such as the Washington Post. Our coding of the accuracy of the claims made in ads drew on these fact-checks where possible and our analysis of the relationship between the accuracy of ad claims and political knowledge over time will indicate whether misperceptions among the electorate have a tendency to persist in the face of enhanced fact-checking in the digital age.

Offering of a Veneer of Legitimacy: An Ironic Consequence of Political Advertising Regulation

Enacted in an effort to discourage negative political advertising, American regulations mandate that candidates endorse their ads (“My name is _____, and I approve this message…”). Four studies suggest that mandatory endorsements ironically enhance the credibility of some ads these regulations were designed to discourage. We test when (i.e., for what types of ads) and why (by distinguishing seven accounts) mandatory endorsements have this effect. Mandatory endorsements boosted evaluations of policy-focused attack ads — those typically plagued by overcomeable skepticism — but had no consistent effect on positive or character-focused ads. We found that mandatory endorsements boost ad believability for two reasons: 1) the tagline offers a legitimizing association with regulation, and 2) the specific endorsement language (“I approve this message”) offers assurance of the ads’ truthfulness. We discuss how these findings bring order to and go beyond seemingly discrepant findings on the influence of mandatory endorsements, compare and contrast these findings to previously-documented unintended effects of communications requirements, and discuss new ideas for how to best promote the greater good by informing (without misleading) the electorate.

Collateral Damage

Unprecedented numbers of negative political advertisements aired in battleground markets during the 2012 primaries, the first presidential campaign since the 2010 Citizens United decision. Grounded in theories of involvement, this investigation parses the influence of partisanship and political expression on the affective effects of negative Super PAC ads. Based on a pretest–posttest design with two experimental conditions and 585 participants, the results indicate both enduring and situational involvement exerted significant main and interaction effects on viewers’ affect toward the general election candidates and the political parties. Driven by Independents who did not engage in political expression, these Super PAC ads evoked significant net decreases in affect toward Mitt Romney and the Republican Party and net increases toward Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. These results suggest enduring and situational involvement moderate the affective effects of negative Super PAC advertising in primary contests.

Ads by 527 Groups and the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election

With the emergence of newly legislated 527 groups and their barrage of television attack ads against each major party candidate, the landscape of the U.S. presidential election changed markedly in 2004. Although these special interest groups—named after the amendment to the U.S. Federal Tax Code that authorized them—seem to function as political action committees, the lack of federal regulation allows 527 groups more latitude in ad content and opaqueness of ad sponsorship. The extant literature on the increasing effectiveness of negative political advertising suggests the relative efficacy of the promotional tactics used by 527 groups. After a discussion of the select 527 group ads run during 2004, the future regulation of 527 groups is broached.

Negative political advertising and the imperative of broadcast regulation in Ghana

Abstract While the effects of negative election campaigns is a well-researched topic in mature democracies, it remains largely unexplored in transitional and nascent democracies such as those in Africa. This article addresses concerns that an insidious culture of intolerance, hate and insults in Ghanaian politics and electoral contests could undermine the efficacy of the country’s neo-democracy. The article draws on pre-election interviews with the two main contenders in Ghana’s 2012 elections to sound out their positions on the propriety and prudence of expressing a negative campaign platform. The interview responses are analysed in the context of past ads run by their parties, which reveal that the candidates’ disclaimers and public professions to run issue-oriented campaigns contradicted the practice of their party’s resort to negative campaigns. The article concludes that candidates and their parties are unlikely to abide by ethical injunctions and accordingly proposes the passage of a legal code to regulate broadcasting (including political advertising) in Ghana.

Effects of Negative Political Advertising and Message Repetition on Candidate Evaluation

A great deal of televised political advertising is seen every electoral year. Expenditures on this type of political communication have reached the all-time high in the past elections. Clearly, political candidates believe that televised political advertising is an effective way to communicate with voters. This study investigates the effects of repetition of negative political ads on candidate evaluations. A pilot study shows situations in which repetition can both benefit and harm the evaluation of the sponsor of a negative political ad. The main study explores a factor that makes a negative political ad more effective, increasing positive reactions toward the sponsor and negative reactions toward the target of the ad. Implications of these results for society, attitudes, and learning are discussed.