Reading the Fine Print: Issue Advertisements and the Persuasive Effects of Campaign Finance Disclosures

Abstract

There is an expectation among practitioners that advertising disclosures work to inform voters about who is speaking and whether they should trust the information in the advertisement. However, existing research suggests that current disclosure regulations may not perform as reformers expect. These studies indicate that voters may be deceived by strategically chosen interest group names that falsely project knowledge or trustworthiness. In this study, I measure how actual campaign names and interest groups are perceived by individuals in terms of their knowledge and trustworthiness. I then experimentally vary the campaign finance disclosure within a ballot initiative advertisement to see how these disclosures affect respondents’ issue preferences. This study found that in some cases, there was no difference between an advertisement with no disclosure and one with a veiled disclosure message. In other cases, this level of disclosure reduced support for the issue. In most cases, respondents appear to condition their support on the credibility of the campaign donor disclosed. In some cases, respondents are deceived by the perceived credibility of campaign names when less comprehensive disclosure is used.

Ads and Editorials: How Pretreatment Reduces the Persuasiveness of Interest Group Advertisements

“…Ballot propositions are commonly found on state and local election ballots in the form of legislative referenda, infrastructure bonds, and voter turnout generating "crypto-initiatives" (Kousser and McCubbins, 2005). Extending the source credibility logic to initiatives, it is easy to see how endorsements in political advertisements and elsewhere can lead to voter competence or deception (Lesenyie, 2020). As in Lupia and McCubbins's (1998) theory, whether voters are enlightened (deceived) depends on whether or not the endorser shares the voter's interests.…”

“…Specifically, while advertising studies have brought important empirical extensions to the question of who can frame a political attack advertisement, they typically study only one advertisement in isolation. These studies use experiments to examine campaign finance disclosure within TV political advertisements (Lesenyie, 2020;Groenendyke and Valentino, 2002;Weber, Dunaway, and Johnson, 2012;Ridout et al, 2014;Brooks and Murov, 2012;Wichowsky, 2013, 2015). These studies all have experimentally varied the "Paid for by" sponsor within candidate and issue advertisements.…”

“…The third regularity is that ads are more persuasive when sponsored by unknown political action committees than when sponsored by candidates. Furthermore, unknown (sometimes fictitious) interest groups are as persuasive as known, credible interest groups (Lesenyie, 2020;Weber et al, 2012). In a classic example, Weber et al (2012) found that an endorsement by the fictitious group Citizens for a Safer America was as persuasive as National Rifle Association for individuals with positive priors toward the NRA.…”