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Throughout history, politicians have implemented a variety of tactics to persuade the public to cast their vote in a certain direction. Most politicians have become especially prone to using the media in the form of political advertising to persuade the voting public. Since political advertising must generate measurable results in a brief period of time, political practitioners tend to utilize three different high impact political advertising methods: image-based, issue-based and negative advertising.
Before the 1980s candidates usually selected issue or image-based ads at the onset of a campaign, in order to launch their persona into the center of the media spotlight. Since that time, “mudslinging” campaigns that serve to undermine the authority and credibility of political opponents have become the “method of choice” for most politicians. This evolution from promoting positive images of the candidate to presenting negative images of the opponents has become increasingly noticeable in regards to the amount of spending on television advertising of politicians.
The majority of contemporary political advertising candidates, whether they are challengers or incumbents, have used negative ads excessively in their political campaigns. Even when the negative campaigns are based on truth, that perception of truth may be biased and may excessively attack the opponent's overall character rather than the particular issues at hand.
The challenge is to understand why political practitioners increasingly use negative political advertising, and the question is, just how effective is negative political advertising at persuading voters? Whether or not the most effective way to persuade voters in a short period of time is through negative advertising has been researched to a minimal extent. Unfortunately most of the results are inconsistent. There is just as much research showing that attack advertising limits turnout among some voters as there is that it is likely to stimulate others by increasing their stockpile of political information about the candidates, by increasing the degree to which they care about the election's outcome, or by increasing ties to their party's nominee. Similarly, while voters in most surveys claim to detest negative advertising, such strategies have been proven to provide winning margins, especially in the late stages of a campaign.
The increasing use of negative advertising in political campaigns has generated considerable controversy between researchers and political practitioners. Thus, more research needs to be conducted in a variety of ways to measure the effectiveness of negative political advertising on persuading voters.
While research on the effectiveness of negative political advertising is essentially inconclusive, researchers do agree on one area: that political candidates are relying with increasing frequency on negative attack campaign strategies. Rather than proving themselves to be the best candidate based on the issues and personal character, many seem more intent on proving their opponents are the worst. This has led to many voters feeling that their only choice is pick “the lesser of two evils”. Still, the general consensus is that negative political advertising works, so candidates will continue to utilize it until it stops working.
The ethical question here is not so much rooted in whether or not candidates CAN succeed using negative attack advertising, but whether they SHOULD. From an ethical point of view, the fact that such ads are effective is basically irrelevant. For example, cheating on ones taxes might “work”, but it is ethically wrong. The same could be said about negative political campaigning. Thus the need for increased research needs to encompass not only the effectiveness of political advertising, but the ethical issues surrounding it as well.
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