The multiple meanings of television advertising

Leo Bogart is author of The Age of Television, Strategy in Advertising,and Polls and the Awareness of Public Opinion.He has been president of the Radio and Television Research Council and of the Consumer Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association. He is executive vice president of the Newspaper Advertising Bureau.     

Decomposing political advertising effects on vote choices

Public Choice - This paper studies the channels through which political television advertising influences individuals' voting decisions. Scholars are interested to learn whether advertising...     

解读政治艺术:一种尝试性的政治艺术理论阐释

解读政治艺术首先需要解决其研究必要性、研究方法、历史背景和特质呈现等问题。对于研究必要性,则大致可以从“历史-疏理”、“文化-觉解”、“社会-致用”、“理论-建构”四个角度进行说明。针对研究现状上的孱弱状态,本文则主张采取“理想类型”研究法和“多元-整合”的研究进路。对于其历史背景,则可以从艺术向政治转化、政治向艺术生成、政治与艺术相互涵摄三层关系来展现。而对于其特质呈现,则可以从致思前提、问题意识、思想资源、多维审视四个角度来凸现。     

Inequality in symbolism: Cultural barriers to female candidates in political advertising

Abstract

More women are successfully running for U.S. political offices. However, further advances may be limited by women's inability to symbolically portray themselves as effective leaders in political media. We see the dilemma most clearly in political ads for female candidates. These texts juxtapose in the viewer's mind the legacy of women's images in advertising — homemaker, mother, sex object — with the ideal of male‐dominated political leadership. In our culture we still identify the male as political and public‐minded and the female as involved in private concerns.

A feminist semiotic reading and comparison of political ads from a Maryland Senate race between two women (Linda Chavez and Barbara Mikulski) and one from George Bush (as an example of a male standard) illustrate the difficulty women face as candidates in portraying themselves as effective leaders. Bush's ad shows the ease with which men can be portrayed as symbolic Father ready to lead the country. Chavez uses her ads to establish her relationship to patriarchy; she will be a leader defined by maintenance of her roles as wife, mother, and daughter. Chavez's opponent, Mikulski, chooses a potentially riskier strategy and “breaks the rules” in seeking a new way to portray women in some of her ads. Mikulski creates a new kind of symbolic space for women that draws on the power of maternal relationships; she will be a leader who follows the example of her brave great‐grandmother. The develoment and acceptance of more powerful symbols for female candidates, such as motherhood, means a greater possibility for women's electoral victories and increased diversity in politics.     

Creating a political image: Shaping appearance and manipulating the vote

The key question addressed is whether political consultants can shape a candidate's appearance in such a way as to influence voters' preferences. To explore this question, an attempt was made to discover the components of a favorable political image and then use that information to manipulate voters' preferences. Photographs of over 200 women were analyzed and the features of the women's appearance which affected the quality of the image projected were isolated. Using this information, a make-up artist and photographer were employed to shape the appearance of six women. Photographs of the women were then placed on campaign flyers along with information on the women's political party affiliation and their position on several key issues. Pairs of flyers were used to create mock elections. The result of these elections suggest that it is possible to shape a political candidate's image in a way which may effect electoral outcomes. The implications of this for electoral politics are discussed.     

Regulating political advertising in the EU and USA: a human rights perspective

Underlying the American model of political campaign communication are the US Constitutional guarantees of free speech, which secure the rights of citizens to support political candidates of their choosing and express that support in various forms, from bumper stickers to television advertising. Courts have at times struck down measures regulating political advertising, including limits on the amounts of such advertising and the amounts of funds which candidates, parties and individuals may spend on election‐related speeches and advertising as infringements of these rights. With few exceptions, in the USA, government may not limit the number of spots a candidate airs in an election. In Europe, international norms concerning free expression and fair elections appear in a number of legal instruments, including, most recently, the UK's Human Rights Act 1998 and the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights. This paper compares the role and development of American First Amendment doctrines in limiting restrictions on political advertising in the USA with the development of comparable norms of free expression under the European Convention on Human Rights, European Union treaties and legislation and national laws of the member states and accession countries. In particular, this paper addresses the validity and enforceability of European legal limits on number, timing, placement, quantity and content of political advertisements under applicable human rights rules and similar regulations. The paper concludes that (1) a combination of European legal instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Community Treaty, the European Community's ‘Television Without Frontiers’ Directives and the Council of Europe's Convention on Transfrontier Television offer protections of a kind and type which broadly track the protections of the USA's First Amendment; that (2) it seems that governmental justifications for restricting these freedoms are more readily accepted in Europe than they might be in courts in the USA; and that (3) certain restrictions on political advertising identified in previous studies as existing throughout Europe will face increased judicial scrutiny and some of them are probably illegal under European Human Rights principles. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

An experimental investigation of voter myopia in economic evaluations

A prevalent assumption in the economic voting literature is that voters’ retrospective evaluations are based on very recent outcomes only, that is, they are myopic. I test this assumption by drawing on a population-based survey experiment from Turkey. Turkey presents a good opportunity to explore voters’ time horizons for economic voting: the long tenure of the same single-party government entailed periods of both good and poor performance, and its overall record to date has been better than its immediate predecessors. I find that voters can provide divergent assessments of incumbent’s performance in managing the economy over different time periods that are in line with the country’s macroeconomic trajectory. Moreover, voters’ evaluations of the incumbent’s performance during its entire tenure have a stronger effect on economic vote than their shorter-term evaluations, defying voter myopia. I provide evidence that long-term outcomes might weigh heavier in voters’ considerations than commonly assumed.     

Polls,coalition signals and strategic voting: An experimental investigation of perceptions and effects

Polls and coalition signals can help strategic voters in multiparty systems with proportional representation and coalition governments to optimise their vote decision. Using a laboratory experiment embedded in two real election campaigns, this study focuses on voters' attention to and perception of polls and coalition signals. The manipulation of polls and coalition signals allows a causal test of their influence on strategic voting in a realistic environment. The findings suggest that active information acquisition to form fairly accurate perceptions of election outcomes can compensate for the advantage of high political sophistication. The theory of strategic voting is supported by the evidence, but only for a small number of voters. Most insincere vote decisions are explained by other factors. Thus, the common practice to consider all insincere voters as strategic is misleading.     

Policy,office and votes: An experimental investigation of the dynamic aspect of party goals

Political parties face hard choices when balancing desires to influence public policy, to gain executive office and to win votes. The existing literature examining such party preferences has traditionally focused on rather static aspects of the parties, such as size, policy positions and the level of intraparty democracy. This article argues that party actors' sophisticated estimations of whether to enter into coalition can be affected by fluctuating public opinion, thereby having a more dynamic aspect. Drawing on a survey experiment on youth politicians in Norway, we test how perceived standing in the polls affects how politicians weigh up policy versus office and votes versus office. The experimental effect of perceived standings was investigated in addition to the respondents' positions within the party, as well as their parties' former governing history, political orientation and size. Results show that, in the presence of the treatment condition (party is perceived to do well in the polls), the preference for policy over office is lessened. We find no experimental effect for vote versus office. These results advance our understanding of the dynamic aspects of party goals and coalition formation.     

Do politicians’ preferences correspond to those of the voters? An investigation of political representation

This paper investigates political representation by exploring the relationship between citizens' preferences and the preferences of their elected representatives. Using Swedish survey data, the empirical analysis shows that voters and politicians have significantly different preferences for local welfare services, implying that voters do not elect representatives with the same preferences as their own. The results show that when comparing a politician of a certain age, gender, educational level and marital status, with a voter with identical characteristics, the politician still has preferences for a significantly higher level of spending on the locally provided services. Hence, our results indicate that the representation of different socio-economic groups does not necessarily lead to a larger degree of representation of these groups' agendas. Moreover, we find the observed difference to be largest for the least salient expenditure item. We do, however, not find any evidence for differences in preferences between the two groups being associated with a decline in trust for politicians among voters.     

False advertising and experience goods: the case of political services in the U.S. senate

This study uses the voter-shopping construct to analyze signaling of moderateness in the U.S. Senate. We compare legislator-provided signals (advertising)—such as membership in the U.S. Senate’s Centrist Coalition—with actual voting histories in order to characterize these types of advertising cues as sincere or insincere. Following recent research indicating that moderate legislators receive greater financial support, we test whether or not Political Action Committees (PACs) are willing to support financially those who send false signals of moderateness. Our results show that the mean level of real PAC contributions garnered by non-moderate Democrats who send false signals exceeds that of the non-moderate Democrats who do not do so by $182,078. This figure is about 74% of mean level of real PAC contributions for those non-moderate Democrats who do not send false signals.     

The role of political parties: An analysis based on transaction costs

This paper explores the proposition that political parties reduce the ‘transaction costs’ of electoral participation. Political parties provide a low cost signal of a candidate's policies and personal characteristics and, in this way, reduce voters' information costs. With reference to ‘transaction cost economics’, political parties offer an ‘implicit contract’ between voters and politicians and thereby reduce the scope for opportunism by politicians. This impact on transaction costs is important in any evaluation of public policy towards political parties.     

An experimental investigation of the double standard in the perception of international affairs

Eighty-eight male college students evaluated a Vietnam War peace proposal that was attributed to one of four sources (United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Viet Cong) or to no source. The proposal attributed to the United States was evaluated significantly higher than the same proposal attributed to North Vietnam. Enhancement of the United States' proposal contributed most to this double standard effect (i.e., the proposal attributed to the United States was judged significantly more positively than in the no source condition), but derogation of a proposal by the enemy was also a factor (i.e., the North Vietnam—no source differential approached statistical significance). Consistency theory predictions were partially supported. When attributed to the United States' ally, South Vietnam, the peace proposal was evaluated significantly more positively than it was in the North Vietnam condition, but the South Vietnam—Viet Cong comparison was not significant.     

Populism as political communication style: An empirical study of political parties' discourse in Belgium

Abstract.  The scientific debate about populism has been revitalised by the recent rise of extreme-right parties in Western Europe. Within the broad discussion about populism and its relationship with extreme-right, this article is confined to three topics: a conceptual, an epistemological and an empirical issue. First, taking a clear position in the ongoing definition struggle, populism is defined primarily as a specific political communication style. Populism is conceived of as a political style essentially displaying proximity of the people, while at the same time taking an anti-establishment stance and stressing the (ideal) homogeneity of the people by excluding specific population segments. Second, it is pointed out that defining populism as a style enables one to turn it into a useful concept that has too often remained vague and blurred. Third, drawing on an operational definition of populism, a comparative discourse analysis of the political party broadcasts of the Belgian parties is carried out. The quantitative analysis leads to a clear conclusion. In terms of the degree and the kinds of populism embraced by the six political parties under scrutiny, the extreme-right party Vlaams Blok behaves very differently from the other Belgian parties. Its messages are a copybook example of populism.