A Meta-Analysis of Political Advertising

Political advertising is one of the dominant media for reaching voters. Previous metaanalyses (Allen & Burrell, 2002; Lau, Sigelman, Heldman, & Babbitt, 1999) found little or no net benefit to negative versus positive ads. However, this finding does not reveal whether ads have effects (both or neither could be persuasive). A meta-analysis revealed that political spots increased issue knowledge, influenced perceptions of the candidates’ character, altered attitudes, and affected candidate preference; influenced agenda-setting, and altered vote likelihood (turnout). One moderator variable was detected: The effect size for learning was larger for studies of students than non-students; however, the effect size for both sub-groups was significant. On the other hand, political ads had larger effects on attitudes for non-students than students

A Functional Analysis of 2008 and 2012 Presidential Nomination Acceptance Addresses

This study investigates the presidential candidates’ nomination acceptance ad-dresses in 2008 and 2012. This study applied Benoit’s (2007) Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to the four Acceptances (one from McCain, two from Obama, and one from Romney). Traditionally the conventions kick off the general election campaign and the nominees’ acceptance addresses are high-lights of these events. This work extends previous research on acceptance ad-dresses speeches from 1952-2004. The speeches in 2008 and 2012 used acclaims (73%) more than attacks (27%) or defenses (0.5%). Incumbents acclaimed more, and attacked less, than challengers, particularly when they discussed their records in office (past deeds). They discussed policy at about the same rate as character (52% to 48%). General goals and ideals were used more often as the basis of acclaims than attacks in these speeches

Meta-Analysis of Research on the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse

Functional Theory has been applied to a variety of election campaign messages, including candidacy announcement speeches; TV spots; debates; direct mail brochures; candidate webpages; nomination acceptance addresses; vice presidential debates; senate, gubernatorial, and mayoral debates; senate, gubernatorial, and house TV spots; and debates and TV spots from other countries. This approach argues that election messages address one of three functions (acclaims, attacks, defenses) and one of two topics (policy, character). This study reports a meta-analysis of several Functional Theory predictions: acclaims are more common than attacks (defenses are consistently the least common function and were not tested here); policy is discussed more than character; when discussing past deeds incumbents acclaim more and attack less than challengers; attacks, and policy statements, are more common in general than primary campaigns; when addressing general goals and ideals, attacks outnumber acclaims. General goals were the basis of more acclaims and fewer attacks than future plans. Candidates use fewer acclaims and more attacks than other sources. Two hypotheses were not confirmed: incumbents did not attack more and acclaim less than challengers generally or when discussing future plans. The essay concludes with suggestions for future research in this area

Bully or Dupe?: Governor Chris Christie’s Image Repair on the Bridge Lane Closure Scandal

In 2013, two lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge – the busiest in the nation – in Fort Lee, NJ, were closed. In January of 2014, it emerged that Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff Kelley instigated this problem. Governor Christie was accused of retaliating against Fort Lee’s Mayor Mark Sokolich, who had not endorsed Christie’s re-election bid. Christie fired Kelley, held a press conference, and apologized to Sokolich and the people of Fort Lee. Christie’s primary strategies were mortification and corrective action, but he also used denial, differentiation, minimization, and defeasibility to deal with this situation. Minimization was interesting as Christie attempted to lower expectations for his performance, reducing the offensiveness of his action

A Functional Analysis of 2013 Australian Member of Parliament and Prime Minister Debates

Kevin Rudd (Labor) engaged in two election debates in 2013: first for his seat in Parliament (Griffith) and then for Prime Minister. In seeking re-election to his Griffith seat he was challenged by Bill Glasson (Liberal), Geoff Ebbs (Green), and Karen Hunter (Palmer United). He faced Tony Abbott (Liberal) in the PM Debate. This study content analyses these two debates: an August 6, 2013 Member of Parliament debate and an August 11, 2013 Prime Minister debate. Acclaims were more common in these two debates than attacks; defenses were the least common function. Statements about policy outnumbered those on policy. In each debate, when the candidates discussed record in office (past deeds), the incumbent acclaimed more and attacked less than the challenger. More acclaims and fewer attacks addressed general goals and ideals

Newspaper Coverage of U.S. Senate Debates

Political debates are important message forms, capable of informing and in-fluencing voters. However, news coverage of debates informs and influences both those who watch, and those who do not watch, the debates. This study compared the content (functions and topics) of 10 U.S. Senate debates from 1998-2004 with the content of newspaper articles about those particular debates. Newspaper coverage of debates was significantly more negative than the debates themselves, reporting a higher percentage of attacks and a smaller percentage of acclaims than the candidates employed. The newspaper articles also stressed character more, and policy less, than the candidates. This journalistic emphasis may facilitate the impression that the candidates are more negative than they really are and that candidates are more concerned with character – and less with policy – than their messages indicate. We also discovered that newspaper cover-age of senatorial debates stresses defenses more, policy less, and character more than news coverage of presidential debates

A Functional Analysis of 2008 Presidential Primary TV Spots

The 2008 presidential campaign was unusual for a number of reasons. For the first time since 1952, neither the President nor the Vice President contended for the Oval Office. This meant highly contested primaries in both major political parties. As the Democratic primary ground toward the end, the leading candidates were an African-American–Barack Obama–and a woman–Hillary Clinton. More money was raised and spent on the primary campaign than ever before. This means that the campaign messages in this election deserve scholarly attention. This study applies Benoit’s Functional Theory and Petrocik’s Issue Ownership Theory to primary campaign ads from both major parties in this campaign. Ads from both political parties used acclaims more than attacks (no defenses occurred in these ads) and discussed policy more than character. They discussed the issues owned by their own party more than those owned by the opposing party. Despite the unusual features of this election, the campaign mes-sages produced were similar to those from previous campaigns

A Functional Analysis of 2008 General Election Presidential TV Spots

This study performed content analysis on the general election TV spots from Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign. There was no significant difference in function by incumbency, which is not surprising given that neither major party candidates was the sitting president or vice president. Unlike ads from previous years, these ads contained more attacks (65%) than acclaims (34%; and like earlier campaigns few defenses: 1%). These ads stressed policy (58%) more than character (42%). The Democratic candidate, as in previous elections, discussed policy more, and character less, than the Republican candidate. Both candidates had a tendency to discuss Democratic issues generally (and the economy and jobs in particular), but Obama stressed Democratic issues more, and Republican issues less, than McCain. This essay ends with discussion of some of the unique features of the 2008 general presidential campaign

A Functional Analysis of 2008 and 2012 Presidential Candidacy Announcement Speeches

This study investigates messages in the surfacing phase of the presidential campaign, through a content analysis of presidential candidacy announcement speeches from the 2008 and 2012 elections. This study applied the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to nine Democratic announcement speeches from 2008, 11 Republican announcement addresses from 2008, and 12 Republican announcement speeches from 2012. This work extends previous research on announcement speeches from 1960-2004 (Benoit, Henson, Whalen, & Pier, 2007). Overall, announcements from 2008 and 2012 used acclaims (75%) more than attacks (25%) or defenses (0.5%). The same announcements discussed policy more than character (58% to 42%); Democrats in 2008 dis-cussed policy more, and character less, than Republicans in that campaign. General goals and ideals were used more often as the basis of acclaims than attacks in these speeches. These speeches were more negative (25% to 22% attacks) and discussed policy more (58% to 50%) and character less (42% to 50%) than past announcements. In 2008, Democratic speeches discussed Democratic issues more, and Republican issues less, than Republican speeches