Political Reality: Attack Ads are Here to Stay

The primary research questions of this study center on two largely overlooked areas in negative political advertising: (1) Would the sponsor of the attack ad message be better off with a positive message? (2) When one is targeted by an attack ad, how should the attacked candidate respond? M-Turk subjects (n = 1,380) were used to conduct a multi-stage experimental design to capture the dynamic aspects of how subjects react to the use of attack ads in a hypothetical political campaign. In general, subjects did not respond favorably to attack ads, as these negative political messages caused damage to the image of both the attacker and the attacked. However, it was found that attack ads did cause greater harm to the evaluations of the attacked candidate than to the attacker. Positive ads offered in response to an attack ad helped the attacked candidate recover, whereas negative counter ads, when executed in response to an attack ad, inflicted greater damage to the attacked than the attacker. Suggestions for future research are offered in this highly relevant area of political campaigning

Migrantes, refugiados, e requerentes de asilo: como diferentes rótulos linguísticos podem influenciar nas atitudes dos portugueses

A presente dissertação foca-se na temática dos migrantes, refugiados e requerentes de asilo em Portugal, tomando como ponto de partida como os diferentes rótulos linguísticos que os portugueses ouvem nos media podem influenciar as atitudes dos mesmos. Foram distribuídos aleatoriamente questionários por três condições (migrantes, refugiados e requerentes de asilo) onde a amostra de (n = 166) participantes portadores de passaporte português. Com base em dados qualitativos sobre as intenções percebidas e associadas aos rótulos e usando as escalas de "Feeling Thermometer" e Distância Social, confirmou-se como previsto que a utilização de certos rótulos linguísticos aumenta a ansiedade dos membros da sociedade acolhedora, como também existem diferenças nos rótulos relativo às atitudes políticas. O rótulo "migrantes" é avaliado significativamente mais negativamente que os outros dois rótulos. O estudo conclui que rótulos diferentes têm diferenças nas atitudes e perceções dos portugueses.The present dissertation focuses on the theme of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Portugal, taking as a starting point how the different linguistic labels that the Portuguese hear in the media can influence their attitudes. Questionnaires were randomly distributed for the three conditions (migrants, refugees and asylum seekers) in the sample of (n = 166) participants with Portuguese passports only. Based on qualitative data on intentions perceived and associated to the labels and using the Feeling Thermometer and Social Distance scales, it was confirmed that the use of certain language labels increases the anxiety of the members of the welcoming society, as well as differences in the labels on political attitudes. The label "migrants" is evaluated significantly more negatively than the other two labels. The study concludes that different labels have differences in the attitudes and perceptions of the Portuguese

Evolutionary and Social Manifestations of Misled Fear: How Fear Motivates and Manipulates

This thesis emphasizes the negative outcomes associated with misled fear. It begins by examining the evolutionary basis of human and animal fear, and then applies the fear learning process as well as evolutionarily innate fears to maladaptive cognitive and behavioral outcomes that manifest today. One example of such a maladaptive manifestation is a behavior based in racial prejudice, occurring from an act based in the evolutionary fear of an out-group. Finally, this paper presents how human fear is further misled and manipulated by the media--intentionally and unintentionally. Overall, the present argument is that humans must increase their conscious awareness of how fear processing systems function in order to resist problematic behavioral outcomes of misled fear. Particularly for media consumers, this knowledge combined with critical media literacy education will be useful in combating fear tactics utilized by the media

Political communication

This review seeks to introduce political communication by showing the kinds of studies currently published. Of necessity not complete, it does not list every study nor does it include every possible approach to political communication, but only those published in the sample of journals—one hopes enough to indicate the scope of this wide area of communication stud

The Affective Effect of Late-Night Humor: The Indirect Influence of Late-Night Comedy Consumption on Political Engagement through Emotions

The research in this dissertation explores the complex communication processes whereby late-night comedy viewing can produce significant indirect effects on citizen engagement in political life. To this end, the present study introduces a theoretical framework, which synthesizes Affective Intelligence theory, the Orientation-Stimulus-Orientation-Response (O-S-O-R) approach, and the Communication Mediation Model. Specifically, three indirect effects models are proposed and tested across two different research designs: an online experiment and a mail survey. The main findings include the following. First, late-night comedy viewing can promote citizens’ political engagement indirectly by eliciting their anger and worry. Second, consuming satirical humor can mobilize discursive activities for citizens by provoking their negative emotions. Third, more frequent discussion, the expanded size of a discussion network, and greater engagement in online communication activities can mediate and reinforce the mobilizing effects of late-night comedy viewing. Finally, the mediating effects of negative emotions and heterogeneous discussion are conditional upon education, such that exposure to late-night comedy can encourage political participation of well-educated individuals, while the same experiences from satirical humor can demobilize less savvy counterparts. The current research effort provides a range of insights to explore the role of newly emerging media genres that are presumably of less enlightening value and yet are more emotionally amusing and provocative. Primarily, these findings contribute to our understanding of various mediation models anchored in the O-S-O-R framework. By incorporating emotion as a viable mediator (the second O) between the reception of message (S) and its ensuing response (R), the proposed indirect effects models enlarge the scope of the mediation model, while capturing the dynamic intervening mechanisms above and beyond more conventional cognitive accounts. Further by introducing education as a first O, the current research fully exploits the O-S-O-R framework in assessing the impact of political entertainment. Moreover, investigating multiple facets of interpersonal discussion harboring distinct implications for participatory democracy extends the purview of mediators that might be employed in the Communication Mediation Model.Ph.D.CommunicationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91420/1/hoonlz_1.pd

Communication and the Body Politic: Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential Campaign in Philadelphia’s Latino Community

This dissertation contains a qualitative case study of how Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, and her staff, created communication systems to contact Latinos during the 2016 presidential campaign and how these systems operated in Northeast Philadelphia. Three research questions guided these observations: How was political communication produced, disseminated, and decoded through interpersonal, mass, and digital communication by the Democratic candidate, her Latino communication staff, and Northeast Philadelphia Latino residents during the 2016 presidential campaign? What were the functions, norms, and values that structured the political communication systems among the Democratic candidate, her Latino communication staff, and Northeast Philadelphia Latino residents? What were the power relations that informed the interactions between the Democratic candidate, her Latino communication staff, and Northeast Philadelphia Latino residents in the political communication system? The dissertation employs the Political Communication Systems Model, a toolkit to observe and theorize on political communication. Under the grounded theory umbrella, two methods were used to collect data. First, Clinton's mediated campaign communication was monitored. Second, I worked as a volunteer in a field operations office that Clinton opened in Philadelphia and performed a participant observation. Clinton built a political communication machine to produce a campaign that used a hybrid media system. She hired a large staff to design and execute an air war (i.e., radio and TV ads and journalistic coverage), a digital campaign (i.e., distribution of information through websites, blogs, social media, newsletters and text messages), and a ground game (i.e., canvassing, phone banking, and online messaging). The Latino campaign was designed to promote liberal values such as globalism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and diversity, values that shaped her economic and political proposals. The ground game had three main objectives in Northeast Philadelphia: register new voters, create strategies to persuade undecided voters to support Hillary Clinton, and organize the "Get Out the Vote" (GOTV), which consists of convincing people to get out their houses, go to the polling station, and vote. A substantial part of the dissertation focuses on describing and analyzing the ground game in Northeast Philadelphia and offers two significant findings. First, political communication systems need material infrastructures operate. Clinton built a material infrastructure to communicate with residents. This infrastructure was made, primarily, of human bodies that were able to move around the territory and use other communicative technologies smartphones, tablets, and computers. Second, human bodies were also used as symbolic devices. Clinton recruited staffers and volunteers whose bodies embodied values such as diversity, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalism. The biographies and trajectories of these individuals projected these values, because they were persons from different parts of Latin America, with diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, and with different experiences of being a U.S. citizen or resident. Finally, the dissertation offers two main contributions. On the one hand, the dissertation expands the Political Communication Systems Model and suggests that the human body is the primary material unit in political communication infrastructures. On the other, this work illustrates how qualitative research can be employed for researching political communication in general, and presidential campaigns in particular.Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y TecnologíaSecretaría de Educación Públic

Política no daytime televisivo : humanização dos políticos no programa da Cristina

O Programa da Cristina apresentou-se, no cenário português, como um espaço único de fusão entre entretenimento do daytime e o campo da política. Através do apelo ao pathos, o programa funcionou como um novo palco mediático para os atores políticos investirem em diferentes dimensões centradas na humanização do caráter. A componente teórica do trabalho centra-se na análise das três dimensões que compõem a presença dos políticos nos programas de entretenimento: (1) o ângulo da política, (2) o ângulo dos media e (3) o ângulo do público. Dessa forma, analisamos, em primeiro lugar, o progressivo investimento dos políticos na humanização da comunicação pública; em segundo lugar, estudamos as lógicas inerentes ao ângulo dos media e o papel preponderante assumido pelos apresentadores dos programas de entretenimento televisivo; em terceiro lugar, estudamos a forma como a presença política no entretenimento é percecionada pelo público. A presente investigação sustenta-se numa metodologia mista, alicerçada na análise de todos as emissões nas quais houve presença política no programa, com o objetivo de perceber de que modo os atores políticos encenaram a sua visibilidade no Programa da Cristina. Os principais resultados da análise demonstram que o programa de daytime serviu, do ponto de vista dos atores políticos, como um veículo para demonstrarem diferentes facetas e dimensões que superam os valores rígidos, frios e distantes associados à política.The Programa da Cristina presented itself, in the Portuguese scenario, as a unique space of fusion between daytime entertainment and the field of politics. Through the appeal to pathos, the program worked as a new media stage for political actors to invest in different dimensions focused on the humanization of character. The theoretical component of the study focuses on the analysis of the three dimensions that make up the presence of politicians in entertainment programs: (1) the politics angle, (2) the media angle, and (3) the audience angle. In that way, we analyze, first, the progressive investment of politicians in the humanization of public communication; second, we study the logics inherent to the media angle and the preponderant role assumed by the presenters of TV entertainment programs; third, we study how the political presence in entertainment is perceived by the audience. We based this research on a mixed method, supported by the analysis of all the emissions in which there was a political presence in the program, to understand how political actors staged their visibility in the Programa da Cristina. The major results of the analysis show that the daytime program served, from the point of view of political actors, as a vehicle to show different facets and dimensions that overcome the rigid, cold and distant values associated with the field of politics