Give your own understanding of positive and negative advertising. Substantiate your ideas with examples.

Negative campaign advertisements have been depicted by many observers as a scourge on American politics. One facet of the case against negative ads—that such commercials discourage voter turnout—has been studied extensively in the past decade. In contrast, a second criticism—that negative advertisements produce corrosive effects on mass attitudes—has received less attention. This is unfortunate as it would be highly consequential for American political behavior if exposure to negative campaign ads breeds widespread cynicism and antipathy toward politics, disapproval of political institutions and elected officials, and a decline in political efficacy. We examine these charges in the context of the 2002 U.S. midterm elections. Merging data on political ads from the 2002 rendition of the Wisconsin Advertising (WiscAds) Project with individual-level data collected via the 2002 Exercising Citizenship in American Democracy Survey, we devise a thorough and multifaceted test of the case against negative advertising. Our analyses do not provide empirical support for the charges levied against negative campaign ads.

Keywords: campaign advertising; political attitudes; midterm elections; Congress

A nation’s citizens must walk a fine line when assessing elected officials and political institutions. On one hand, a degree of skepticism seems prudent. Were citizens to view the political arena with something approaching blind faith, the risk of elite malfeasance would be considerable. Although skepticism may be advisable, mass cynicism can be debilitating. If citizens conclude that government is damaged beyond repair, then little or no incentive exists for individuals to invest time and effort in weighing the pros and cons of new policy proposals or in selecting between competing candidates. During the past four decades, Americans as a whole most often have leaned much closer to cynicism in their political assessments than to blind faith. Indeed, brief periods of high trust in government, such as in the months following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, are notable precisely because they are at odds with the familiar pattern. Numerous factors plausibly contribute to Americans’ characteristically dark views of government. Event-driven explanations ring true when we recall that the period in question encompasses an impressive array of political scandals and failed policies. Likewise, media-driven explanations also enjoy intuitive merit given that signs of mass cynicism emerged soon after the rise of television news, and further waves of pessimism have coincided with the growth of talk radio and twenty-four-hour cable news outlets.

Our objective is not to revisit the many forces potentially operating to induce citizens’ highly critical political appraisals, but rather to examine one particular force in depth. The central question we pursue is whether exposure to negative campaign advertisements sours citizens’ broader political perceptions. This focus on campaign ads ties in well with both event- and media-based models in that political campaigns are important recurring events and candidates’ ads are noteworthy components of political television. But our interest in the possible effects of campaign ads stems from more than the opportunity to improve our understanding of why so many citizens view politics and government with displeasure. An additional concern centers on the nature and significance of negative campaign ads themselves.

Attention to negative ads has proceeded at a frenzied pace since the publication of groundbreaking research by Ansolabehere and Iyengar. Most of the subsequent studies have focused on the charge that negative ads suppress voter turnout. The scholarly community has devoted less attention to the parallel grievance that these ads fuel public cynicism and political alienation writ large. We view this second case against negative ads as provocative and disturbing, but also as incomplete in that Ansolabehere and Iyengar’s empirical work on this matter speaks to only one aspect of mass opinion and does so using only one methodological approach. We offer a wide-reaching examination of the possible effects of campaign advertisements on citizens’ views of politics and government. First, we assess the case against negative ads, evaluating both the rationale for why negative ads may produce deleterious effects on mass attitudes and past evidence regarding such effects. Second, we outline our own research strategy. Our focus is on ads run in conjunction with the 2002 gubernatorial, U.S. House, and U.S. Senate elections. Advertising data are drawn from the 2002 rendition of the WiscAds Project (Goldstein and Rivlin 2005), with data on citizens’ perceptions drawn from the 2002 Exercising Citizenship in American Democracy Survey, a national survey we fielded during the 2002 election season. Last, we present a series of empirical tests designed to shed new light on the question of whether exposure to political advertisements influences citizens’ perceptions of politics and government.