According to Ansolabehere and Iyengar, when the public is exposed to a large amount of negative campaign ads, voter turnout is affected negatively. If this is a case, why do you think candidates spend so much money on these ads? How do you personally feel about these “attack ads” and how are your perceptions of the candidates influenced by the ads?
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I believe that political candidates use these advertisements as a vital part of their campaigns, because of the idea conveyed through the infamous saying: “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Historical public relations professional P.T. Barnum once said, “I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right.” The more a campaign can try and highlight the differences among candidates and keep voter interest in the campaign, the better off a campaign will be—even if the campaign must resort to attack ads. Even if these ads really do “decrease” voter turnout as according to Ansolabehere and Iyengar, they still catch quite a bit of voter attention. According to Public Opinion, Brians and Wattenberg found that viewing attack ads correlates with more voter knowledge of issues. If a campaign were to simply run "nice" biographical and issue ads throughout the entire campaign, voters would lose interest in the monotony that these types of ads can bring. In my opinion, the use of attack ads marks a certain stage to which almost every political campaign comes. I personally think that the use of some attack ads is necessary to most political campaigns, but too many attack ads can hinder voter turnout. However, this hindrance to voter turnout isn’t necessarily bad because the people who are educated on the important issues and who truly care about the democratic process will vote, regardless of the nature of political ads. My personal perceptions of candidates are not significantly influenced by attack ads because I care more about the implications of my civic duty to research, become educated and vote based on issues and candidate action than I do about basing my vote on a campaign’s choice for television commercials.
ReplyDeleteI personally do not agree with attack ads and can see why they would decrease voter turnout. I feel that to win a persons vote you should have to prove you are a strong candidate and not just that your opponent is a weak candidate.
ReplyDeleteI believe people spend so much money on these attack ads as a means of last resort. Attack ads are usually something that come out really close to election in races that are really close and the candidate feels like they need that extra edge to get on top. In actuality, I think for the voters who are already educated it harms the candidate. I like to think that people won't be so naive and realize that attack ads are many times very distorted.
When a candidate plays a fair game without attack ads (unless defending themselves) I believe it shows great character and that they truely are a great candidate because they believe they can win without pointing out flaws in their opponents. I don't understand why you would feel success by winning just because you got people to believe how horrible another candidate was. The best campaigns should be focused on the candidate they are supporting.
Unfortfunately, I do believe people who are unedecuated about the candidates use negative ads to make up their minds in the voting booths. They definitely have a powerful effect, but you just have to hope people will do their research. The reason I believe it to decrease voter turnout is because people who are undecided start hearing negatives about each candidate and then just decide not to vote at all because they don't know what to believe.
From the text page 463 it writes that it is unlikely to persuade voters to change from one candidate to another, only a small percentage of voters do (usually the non parties)
ReplyDeleteI think the campaigns spend so much money on ads so they can reach out to voters in different levels.
Most people receive information through television, then Internet and newspaper, there are also fare amount of people who watches the talk shows.
To attack those undecided voters it is necessary to invest in more ads, because once people have their mind set on one candidate it will be hard to change their opinion.
I personally dislike any attack ads, but even though I do not think I am influenced by it that I have a fair judgment of the oppose candidate that is not true.
I am influenced by the information. Attack ads is a way to "brain wash" those who don't take the time to look into the truth.
For example, 2008 Taiwan's presidential election the green party attack the blue party of having US passport which means Ma (blue candidate has duel citizenship to many native this is very offensive).
Many people searched and supported the statement and for those who supports the green party were worried if one day Taiwan is in trouble will Ma abandon us and fly to America.
But for the Blue parties, at first they denied and said its just attack ads no proof, but after the proof was provided they said even though its true it was a long time ago which has nothing to do with Ma anymore. Both parties had their own ads trying to keep their voters on their side.
I do not necessarily agree with the text that attack ads that the voter turnout will be negatively. I think it only affects those who have not decided who to vote.
As exemplified by the past election, people want something positive. That is why President Obama appealed to such a wide base, because they viewed his ideas of change as a positive. This concept is exemplified in the book, Ansolabehere and Iyengar mention that the level of positivity of negativity in the advertising during an election directly affects voter turnout. The real question though is why do candidates spend money on attack advertisements?
ReplyDeleteThe book mentions 1996 presidential candidate Steve Forbes because he used a multimillion dollar negative attack campaign to inform voters about his flat tax rate. Studies arguably showed that voters recalled the information because of the advertisement. After this past election, I would argue that the next election is going to be tough for Republicans, unless President Obama’s policies fall flat. Republicans definitely had a hard time derailing the “Change” train with negative advertisements this past election, so they will definitely have to come up with something different.
Personally I feel that attack advertisements are a good use of money. I believe that sometimes people just see everything through rose colored glasses and that the only way to get to some vital information is through attack advertisements. If candidates constantly listed what they were going to do, and if the candidates were never questioned, what good would the campaign do? I think that negative campaign advertisements kind of work as a check and balance system.
My personal perceptions are not altered by advertisements; I am the kind of person that sticks to my own personal party line. More than likely I just skip the negative advertisements.
I believe that candidates spend money on negative campaign ads because they attract attention. Negativity seems to sell on more planes than just campaigning as well. This is documented in most everyone’s evening news every night.
ReplyDeleteAn example: when your friend passes on a bit of juicy gossip about someone else, most anyone would pay close attention, especially if it is scandalous. Boring information about what your friend did routinely yesterday isn’t nearly as interesting. Similarly, it isn’t nearly as interesting to know about what a candidate did to help out the community versus what they may have done that is scandalous.
I personally do not mind negative ads. I will admit that by the end of the campaign season that they do get a little old, but I understand their purpose. People seem to listen and talk about negativity and the rumors about what someone may or may not have done. Negative campaign ads do have a huge drawback though. They take the focus away from what the candidate plans to do on the positive side. The candidate is forced to go on the defense to protect their name rather than explain to us what their new plans for fixing health care and education are.
My perceptions are influenced more by how the candidate reacts to accusations than the actual accusation itself. I care about how a candidate can react under pressure. I know that most of the negative ads are bogus; it just takes a informed person to filter out what is good information and what is sketchy. Anyone who says that they are not influenced by these negative campaign ads are just fooling themselves.
I think that candidates spend so much money on these ads because they want to make themselves look like “the good guy”. It seems like the more money you spend on making someone else look bad, voters start to notice. Obviously if they see one candidate portrayed as a bad guy when compared to the other, they’re probably going to vote for the “good guy”.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting on pg. 431, when Robinson’s thesis mentioned that “Viewers less interested in politics thus received a steady diet of disturbing, negative information about political issues they were not familiar enough with to counter assess, leading to doubt and malaise about the system”. It just goes to show that by producing these negative ads, people will begin to question your motives/character. I do agree that they may have a negative effect on voter turnout because voters start to question the morals that candidates live by.
Negative ads do seem to grab people’s attention, but I honestly think negative political ads are a waste of time. I tend to disregard these negative ads and research how each candidate REALLY feels on different issues. I’d much rather see a positive campaign for once, if that is possible. We’ve all made mistakes in the past, and I’d like to think we’ve learned from them. I’d be a little worried if there wasn’t dirt you could pull up on someone.
Generally speaking, as human beings, we are more attracted to negative information than positive information. This might be one reason why political candidate spend a lot of campaign funds on attack ads. Attack ads tend to be fairly vicious and because of this, the information that is disclosed is more salient to voters than the information of more positive ads.
ReplyDeleteThe authors of the textbook bring up a good point about election campaigns on page 463. With negative advertising, candidates aren't necessarily looking to convert voters to their points of view. They're aiming to make sure that their supporters feel very strongly about voting for them. A way to pander to supporters is to bring up negative information about the opponent. This is more likely to make the average supporter feel more strongly about the candidate.
Personally, I don't appreciate attack ads at all. I feel that if a candidate willingly stoops to attacking an opponent, it might be an indication of some sort of character flaw. It is quite possible to run a campaign based on positive things.
However, if a negative ad brings up some information that seems particularly important, I'll likely pay some attention to it and keep it in mind when considering who I want to support.
Ansolobehere and Iyengar have a several possible reasons why negative campaigning loses voters but is still used by politicians. Basically, negative campaigns discourage voters but gain more publicity for the candidate.
ReplyDeleteI think that a good metaphor for why it discourages voting would be a boxing or UFC fight. The fighter who is being the most aggressive could be comparable to the politician running the negative ads. With each hit, the fans of that particular fighter gain and solidify their pride (whether that be from the ‘strength’ of their pick, or from the ‘weakness’ of the opponent) and loyalty. And with each punch the opponent falls a bit harder. After a continuous beating (or barrage of negative ads), the opponent slowly withers and the fans are filled with disappointment and (specifically with negative ads) apathy. They no longer have faith in their fighter candidate and don’t favor the more brutal opponent enough to switch the support over. And so (in the political arena) they withdraw their vote.
In my opinion negative advertisements are a great way to solidify support from those steadfast followers, however if the point is to gain votes in order to win the election, this is certainly the wrong way to go about it. I agree with Jessica’s comment about how they may be relying too much on the phrase “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. If a candidate does a particularly aggressive advertisement there is a possibility that it may show up on websites, the nightly news, 24hour talk shows or talk radio. This gives the candidate free publicity. They paid for their advertisement to run during the season finally of House, and now it’s on CNN and MSNBC as well free of charge.
I think that political candidates use negative campaign ads because they seem to show the worst in the opposition. People want to vote for someone who has little to no skeletons in their closets. People love a controversial story by choosing a tragic event over a societal improvement because it has the shock value. People have become desensitized through the news and need more dramatic information to get any rise out of a story or campaign.
ReplyDeleteI do not mind negative ads at all because I want to know if the candidate has been in any kind of scandal; personal or political. Negative campaign ads do take the attention away from what the candidate plans to do once they get the prestigious position.
From the book on page 463 it says that it is unlikely to persuade voters to change from one candidate to another, so why even do it. There is a correlation of remembering something attention grabbing which tends to be negative and drive voters to go out and vote against the tarnished competition because of their short-comings.
I would say my perceptions are influenced more by how the candidate reacts to pressure and negatives about their past. If they own up to all they have done then I believe that history can be forgiven, but to downplay something like adultery or whatever is worse.