Does Attack Advertising Demobilize the Electorate?

Abstract

We address the effects of negative campaign advertising on turnout. Using a unique experimental design in which advertising tone is manipulated within the identical audiovisual context, we find that exposure to negative advertisements dropped intentions to vote by 5%. We then replicate this result through an aggregate-level analysis of turnout and campaign tone in the 1992 Senate elections. Finally, we show that the demobilizing effects of negative campaigns are accompanied by a weakened sense of political efficacy. Voters who watch negative advertisements become more cynical about the responsiveness of public officials and the electoral process.

Raising the tone? The impact of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ campaigning on voting in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election

“…Some argue that negative advertising has a demobilising effect, such that electors exposed to it become less likely to vote in future (Ansolabehere et al, 1994;Ansolabehere and Iyengar, 1995). Others claim, on the contrary, that negative advertising either has no net effect on voters, or may actually encourage participation (Freedman and Goldstein, 1999;Goldstein and Freedman, 2002;Lau and Pomper, 2004;Sigelman and Kugler, 2003).…”

“…Negative advertising seemed to demobilise participants: those exposed to such messages became more cynical about politics, felt less efficacious and became less inclined to vote than was the case for those seeing more positive messages (Ansolabehere et al, 1994;Ansolabehere and Iyengar, 1995). Speaking as it did to anxieties about political participation, disengagement and growing distrust of politicians, this research caught a mood.…”

Negative Campaign Advertising: Demobilizer or Mobilizer?

“…Currently, academic criticism of political ads concerns not how learning from them may manipulate whom people vote for but rather whether they will vote at all. Stephen Ansolabehere and his colleagues (Ansolabehere et al 1994;Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1995) argue that campaign advertising can be either mobilizing or demobilizing depending on its tone (hereafter these publications are collectively labeled 'Ansolabehere et al,' unless specifically referenced individually). Through a set of controlled experiments, they show that subjects who view a negative ad embedded in a news broadcast are significantly less likely to say they will vote.…”

How Does Treatment Self-Selection Affect Inferences About Political Communication?

“…Evidence of this influence comes largely from experiments that expose participants to different messages and measure effects on argument evaluations, opinions, issue importance, information-seeking, etc. (see Ansolabehere et al 1994;Arceneaux and Johnson 2012;Berinsky and Kinder 2006;Brewer and Gross 2005;Iyengar and Kinder 1987;Miller and Krosnick 2000;Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997;Petty and Cacioppo 1986). Questions have been raised, however, about these kind of studies given that, in Hovland's words: "In an experiment the audience on whom the effects are being evaluated is one which is fully 2 exposed to the communication.…”