Campaign rhetoric and the hide-and-seek game

Abstract

We present a model of political campaigning where a candidate chooses between promoting oneself (positive campaign) or attacking the rival (negative campaign). Candidates vary only by quality. Campaign choices determine the subject of public deliberation: If a candidate runs a positive campaign and his rival a negative campaign, the voters learn the quality of the "focal" candidate. Thus, negative campaigns may be used either to expose the rival candidate (informative role) or to turn attention away from oneself (non-informative role). The effect of negative campaigns depends on whether it is faced with another negative campaign (cross talk) or a positive campaign (fruitful debate). We suggest that in order to ascertain the effect of negative advertising, studies should take into account the campaigns employed by both candidates. Voter beliefs about candidate quality plays a major role in campaign selection: while the incidence of negative campaigning goes down as the prior probability of a candidate being good increases, the probability of selection of the correct candidate is non-monotonic in the said prior.

Informative campaigning in multidimensional politics: The role of naïve voters

“…• Strategic choice of campaign issues: Although traditional literature has not sufficiently examined information transmission through candidates’ decisions on what issues to emphasize, there is recently a growing literature about this issue (e.g. Bhattacharya 2016; Dragu and Fan 2016; Egorov 2015; Li and Li 2013; Polborn and Yi 2004; Schipper and Woo 2019; Zhang 2016). Polborn and Yi (2004), Li and Li (2013), Bhattacharya (2016), and Schipper and Woo (2019), like our study, analyze negative campaigning.…”

“…Bhattacharya 2016; Dragu and Fan 2016; Egorov 2015; Li and Li 2013; Polborn and Yi 2004; Schipper and Woo 2019; Zhang 2016). Polborn and Yi (2004), Li and Li (2013), Bhattacharya (2016), and Schipper and Woo (2019), like our study, analyze negative campaigning. 6…”

The Influence of Political Messages on User Engagement within Social Media Environments

“…As a result, social media users are provided the means to develop and send messages across social networks perpetuating online communities (Neubaum & Krämer, 2017). Bhattacharya (2016) has suggested that efforts to categorized negative campaign communications strategies into identifiable topics may be ill-considered. Depending on the intentions and motivations of political candidates, negative campaign messages may or may not solicit voter support.…”