Fears that outside groups are hijacking election campaignagendas are unfounded

Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling on Citizens United v. FEC, the spending and influence of outside interests in US elections has ballooned. But which groups are spending on what, and does this spending actually change the issues focused on in campaigns? In new research, Michael Franz, Erika Franklin Fowler, and Travis Ridout examined televised political advertising from 2008, 2010 and 2012. They find that outside group sponsorship has moved towards multi-issue non-membership groups, and that these groups match some of their issue discussions to those of their preferred candidates at rates similar to party-sponsored advertising. They also find that these groups show little “issue leadership”, and do not generally move candidates to focus on certain issues

Political advertising is not polarizing the American public

There is little doubt that American politics has become more partisan and acrimonious in recent decades. While there are many potential sources of this rise in polarization, many point to the growth in political advertising as one potential cause. By combining survey and advertising data from US media markets, Travis N. Ridout, Erika Franklin Fowler, Michael Franz, and Ken Goldstein were able to investigate the effects of political advertising. They find that there is no link between political advertising and polarization or between the amount of negative or contrasting advertising and polarization

Sponsorship, Disclosure, and Donors: Limiting the Impact of Outside Group Ads

This research examines how an attack ad’s sponsorship conditions its effectiveness. We use data from a survey experiment that exposed participants to a fictional campaign ad. Treatments varied the ad’s sponsor (candidate vs. group), the group’s donor base (small donor vs. large donors), and the format of the donor disclosure (news reports vs. disclaimers in the ads). We find that ads sponsored by unknown groups are more effective than candidate-sponsored ads, but disclosure of donors reduces the influence of group advertising, leveling the playing field such that candidate- and group-sponsored attacks become equally effective. Increased disclosure does not, however, advantage small-donor groups over large-donor groups

Spending Fast and Furious: Political Advertising in 2020

This article is a first look at political advertising in 2020. Spending on political advertising in the United States in 2020 obliterated records, and Democrats held huge advantages in the presidential race and in most congressional and senatorial races. In addition, all indicators suggest that spending on digital advertising continued to rise. Political advertising was largely similar in tone to past years and, in the presidential race, was substantially more positive than 2016. In addition, interest groups remained heavily involved in federal races in 2020, airing more ads than ever before, though their spending as a percentage of total ad spending was slightly less than in 2016. Political ad spending in 2020 may have been historically high because of the impact of COVID-19 on how campaigns could reach voters, suggesting that paid advertising may decline in 2022 and 2024, at least as a percentage of total election spending

Political advertising in 2016: The presidential election as outlier?

The 2016 presidential campaign broke the mold when it comes to patterns of political advertising. Using data from the Wesleyan Media Project, we show the race featured far less advertising than the previous cycle, a huge imbalance in the number of ads across candidates and one candidate who almost ignored discussions of policy. This departure from past patterns, however, was not replicated at the congressional level. We draw some lessons about advertising from the 2016 campaign, suggesting that its seeming lack of effectiveness may owe to the unusual nature of the presidential campaign with one unconventional candidate and the other using an unconventional message strategy, among other non-advertising related factors

The Issue Focus of Online and Television Advertising in the 2016 Presidential Campaign

Theories of campaign issue emphasis were developed in a pre-digital era. How well do these theories explain spending in the current era, when digital media allow for targeting of specific types of voters? In this research, we compare how the 2016 campaigns, both primary and general election, deployed television advertising with how they deployed online advertising. We suggest that, because online messages are targeted to specific viewer profiles much more than television messages, television ads should be more likely to discuss highly salient issues and valance issues than online ads. To test these ideas, we rely upon data from the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracked all televised political ads that aired in 2016, and our coding of data from Pathmatics, a company that tracks online advertising. We find, contrary to our expectations, that the predictors of issue discussion online and on television are largely similar

Effect of advertising for a state-based health insurance marketplace on information-seeking behavior

Introduction • Kentucky was an early success stories under the Affordable Care Act through its statebased marketplace, known as kynect • The state sponsored an award-winning multimedia campaign to create awareness and educate its residents about the opportunity to gain coverage • In 2015, the new administration failed to renew a contract that resulted in the cancellation of television advertising for the final four weeks of the 2016 open enrollment period • We leverage this change to identify whether a dose-response relationship exists between state-sponsored television advertising and information seeking about health insurance Methods • Advertising data from 10 media markets across Kentucky was obtained for October 2013 through January 2016 from Kantar Media/CMAG through a partnership with the Wesleyan Media Project • State-level information-seeking was derived from reports made by the Office of the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services obtained via public records request • Policy variable – state-level population-weighted average count of kynect ads per week • Outcomes – 1) calls to the kynect call center, 2) page views (number of individual pages viewed), 3) visits (including repeats from the same IP address), 4) unique visitors (excluding repeats) for the kynect web site • Linear regression models used to describe how changes in kynect advertising volume affected these outcomes, adjusting for other advertising (healthcare.gov, insurers, insurance agencies, nonprofits, and other state governments), open enrollment periods, and other relevant time periods (e.g., week of Thanksgiving, week of Christmas, etc.) Results • Advertising for kynect fell from an average of 58.8 and 52.3 ads per week during the 2014 and 2015 open enrollment periods, respectively, to 19.4 during the first nine weeks of the 2016 open enrollment period and none during the last four weeks • Each additional kynect ad per week during open enrollment was associated with – 7,973 additional page views for kynect website – 390 additional visits for kynect website – 388 additional unique visitors for kynect website • Advertising was not significantly associated with calls to the kynect call center Conclusions • State-sponsored television advertising was a key driver of information-seeking behavior in Kentucky during the 2014-2016 open enrollment periods • Our findings add to previous evidence indicating that government-sponsored media campaigns are associated with increased enrollment for health insurance exchanges • Reductions in public outreach efforts could have negative effects on the individual market if consumers are uncertain about the continued availability of coverage and so-called “healthy procrastinators” fail to enroll as a result, contributing to lower enrollment and potentially a worse risk pool for insurers Implications • Misconceptions about eligibility and deadlines for enrollment in health insurance coverage are barriers to having all eligible individuals covered • Given the uncertain future of the ACA and the individual non-group market for health insurance in the United States, our findings indicate that state-sponsored media campaigns can be an effective strategy for encouraging information-seeking behavio

Does Local Television News Coverage Cultivate Fatalistic Beliefs About Cancer Prevention?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79095/1/j.1460-2466.2009.01474.x.pd

When “Tried and True” Advocacy Strategies Backfire: Narrative Messages Can Undermine State Legislator Support for Early Childcare Policies

A core principle of policy advocacy is that to engage decision makers in the urgency, complexity, and controversy of problems, advocates must effectively tell the story of those issues. Policy stories, or narratives, paint mental pictures of what a problem is, who is affected, and how it came to be. Yet, the persuasive effects of narratives on one key group, state legislators, remain understudied. Drawing from the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), media advocacy, and public interest communications, we sought to inform advocacy strategy by illuminating state legislators’ responses to messages about public investments in quality childcare for all. Contrary to expectations, we found that narratives can have unintended effects challenging or even diminishing legislator support. We discuss implications for advocacy strategy

Body Language and Gender Stereotypes in Campaign Video

We examine the impact of candidates’ gender on the body language that they employ in their political advertisements. Using data on over 1,600 candidates appearing in almost 5,400 political ads that aired in the U.S. between 2017 and 2020, we employ automatic pose detection to trace the movement of their hands. We find, consistent with gender stereotypes, that male candidates use more assertive hand movements than female candidates. We also find evidence of more assertiveness among Democratic candidates and among candidates running for U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and governor