Department of Advertising

Political Advertising

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

As this web site develops, in the space below we will provide a bibliography of articles and books relevant to this topic. To the extent practical, bibliographic references will be annotated.

Anyone interested in submitting additional bibliographic material for this reference page, or for any of the others at this site, is welcome to send such material via e-mail to jef@mail.utexas.edu. Please type the references in the same format as is used here, and keep the annotations to a few sentences.

  1. Jef I. Richards and Clarke L. Caywood (1991). Symbolic Speech in Political Advertising: Encroaching Legal Barriers. In F. Biocca (ed.), Television and Political Advertising, Volume II: Signs, Codes, and Myths, Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 231-256.

  2. James G. Benze and Eugene R. Declercq (1985). Content of Television Political Spot Ads for Female Candidates. Journalism Quarterly, 62 (2): 278-82, 288.

    The content of female candidates' political spot ads is examined and compared to the norm of male candidates in similar contests. The sample consists of 113 30-second television commercials run by 23 male and 23 female candidates in 1982 House, Senate and statewide races. The ads are coded in five general areas (partisanship, issue content, group references, candidate image and nature of negative advertising), each with a subset of categories. Regardless of gender, the candidate image is found to be given the greatest emphasis and partisanship the least in political advertising. Results indicate that male candidates emphasize toughness in their ads three times as often as females, while the latter stress their compassion twice as often as men.

  3. Margaret K. Latimar (1985). Political Advertising for Federal and State Elections: Images or Substance? Journalism Quarterly, 62 (4): 861-68.

    Extending from a previous study by the author, the research examines the contextual (situational) influence in the content (personal vs. policy) of political advertising. The study involves a content analysis of ads in the Alabama newspapers for in-state federal races and for a second gubernatorial race. Results indicate that the ration of the personal to policy content in the ads varies according to political context (whether the ad is for a challenger or an incumbent, a competitive or noncompetitive race, etc.).

  4. Kevin L. Keenan (1985). Sex As a Variable in Political Advertising. Proceedings of the 1985 Convention of the American Academy of Advertising, (ed.), Nancy Stephens: R128-31.

    The effects of voter sex, source sex, and candidate sex in political advertising are explored in a field experiment with 80 male and female eligible voters in Athens, Georgia. The research uses 30-second radio commercials with voice-only sources and fictitiously named candidates. Results of the study show that sex of source has a significant effect on perceived source credibility and evaluation of the candidate with female source producing higher scores on both scales.

  5. Margaret K. Latimar (1984). Policy Issues and Personal Images in Political Advertising in a State Election. Journalism Quarterly, 61 (4): 776-84, 852.

    The political campaign ads run by 42 candidates for the Alabama state senate in1982 are content analyzed to determine whether they are policy- based or personally-oriented. The sample units are weekly newspapers originating in the senate districts outside the heavily urban areas where the majority of the population tend to use newspapers as a source of information on state government politics. Results show that an overwhelming majority of the ads focus heavily on the personal theme. This study also indicates that political context dictates the successful choice of message information, with the winning challengers focusing more on policy presentation and the winning incumbents personalized information.

  6. Gina M. Garramone (1984). Voter Response to Negative Political Ads. Journalism Quarterly, 61 (2): 250-59.

    The perceived truthfulness of negative political advertising and the impact of the advertising on feelings toward the sponsor and target of the ad is examined in a study of voters of varying candidate preference, levels of involvement and demographic characteristics. Telephone interviews are conducted with 211 voters randomly drawn from a university community, who reported having seen the negative political ad of interest. Results indicate that the level of perceived truthfulness differs among commercials with different content of themes, and that boomerang may be the more common type of negative advertising. The study also suggest the interaction of the perception and feelings with the political involvement, prior candidate preference, and certain demographics of the voter.

  7. Sharyne Merritt (1984). Negative Political Advertising: Some Empirical Findings. Journal of Advertising, 13 (3): 27-38.

    The effects of negative political advertising appeals are examined in an actual election by means of a survey with constituents of a state Assembly district where candidates employed negative appeals. Results indicate that negative political advertising evokes negative affect toward both the targeted opponent and the sponsor. This study also suggests that negative advertising is likely to encourage counterarguing and source derogation among party loyalists on the opponent side and is not likely to be effective for a minority party candidate.

  8. Gina M. Garramone and Sandra J. Smith (1984). Reactions to Political Advertising: Clarifying Sponsor Effects. Journalism Quarterly, 61 (4): 771-75.

    This study examines the effects of ad sponsor characteristics (the candidate him/herself vs. an independent source) and the voter's partisanship on the perceived trustworthiness of the sponsor, candidate image and commercial evaluation. The process by which these effects occur is also investigated in an experiment conducted with 112 undergraduatestudents. Versions of an actual negative political television commercial are used as test stimuli. Results indicate that only for those reported highly dependent on political advertising in making up their mind about the candidate to vote for, an independent commercial sponsor is perceived more trustworthy than a candidate sponsor, and the commercial itself is evaluated more positively. For these subjects, sponsor independence and voter partisanship are found to affect the targeted candidate's image indirectly via perception of sponsor trustworthiness, which in turn impacts upon commercial evaluation.

© 1995, 1996, 1997 Jef I. Richards
Some material here may be subject to copyrights of other contributors.