Political advertising and persuasion in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections

The 2008 presidential election was historic in many respects. The campaign included the first African American major-party candidate, and neither candidate was an incumbent president or vice president. In addition, one candidate took public funding and the other candidate did not. This latter disparity resulted in an imbalance of resources across the two campaigns, especially in the purchase of political advertising. But did that imbalance matter for who won? Did advertising move voters, and if so, by how much? This article examines patterns of presidential ad buys in 2008 and compares them with presidential ad buys in 2004. It also examines the impact of advertising on county-level vote returns in both years. The results demonstrate some important differences in advertising patterns across years, especially in terms of ad sponsorship and market-level advertising advantages. We also find significant and strong advertising persuasion effects in 2008. © The Author(s) 2010

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

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

Understanding the effect of political advertising on voter turnout: A response to Krasno and Green

Krasno and Green have argued that political advertising has no impact on voter turnout. We remain unconvinced by their evidence, given concerns about how they measure the advertising environment, how they measure advertising tone, their choice of modeling techniques and the generalizability of their findings. These differences aside, we strongly agree that political advertising does little to undermine voter participation. © 2008 Southern Political Science Association

Evaluating measures of campaign advertising exposure on political learning

Scholars employ various methods to measure exposure to televised political advertising but often arrive at conflicting conclusions about its impact on the thoughts and actions of citizens. We attempt to clarify one of these debates while validating a parsimonious measure of political advertising exposure. To do so, we assess the predictive power of six different measurement approaches - from the simple to the complex - on learning about political candidates. Two datasets are used in this inquiry: (1) geo-coded political advertising time-buy data, and (2) a national panel study concerning patterns of media consumption and levels of political knowledge. We conclude that many traditional methods of assessing exposure are flawed. Fortunately, there is a relatively simple measure that predicts knowledge about information featured in ads. This measure involves combining a tally of the volume of advertisements aired in a market with a small number of survey questions about the television viewing habits of geo-coded respondents

La négativité dans les campagnes électorales aux États-Unis

Les campagnes politiques aux États-Unis sont considérées comme particulièrement négatives, surtout au niveau présidentiel. Cette recherche analyse la négativité de la campagne présidentielle de 2016 dans ce pays en se concentrant sur les publicités payantes, à la fois à la télévision et en ligne. Les résultats pointent globalement des niveaux de négativité très élevés, mais avec un degré de négativité variant considérablement selon la phase de la campagne (élection générale versus primaires), le calendrier (la proximité du jour du scrutin), le type d’annonceur (candidat lui-même versus groupe qui le soutient) et le média (télévision versus internet). Des recherches ultérieures devraient s’efforcer d’établir davantage de comparaisons internationales.Political campaigns in the United States are thought to be particularly negative, especially at the presidential level. This research examines negativity in the 2016 US presidential campaign, with a focus on paid television and paid online advertising. I find very high levels of negativity, but the amount of negativity varies considerably depending on the phase of campaign (general election v. nomination), the timing (the closeness to Election Day), the type of sponsor (candidate v. group) and medium (television v. online). Further research should strive to make more cross-national comparisons