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TELEVISED POLITICAL ADVERTISING IN THE 1992 AND 1996 ELECTIONS: USING TECHNOLOGY TO MANIPULATE VOTERS
Author(s) -
Kaid Lynda Lee,
Noggle Gary
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
southeastern political review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 0730-2177
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.1998.tb00514.x
Subject(s) - suspect , political advertising , voting , politics , political science , presidential system , advertising , adversary , presidential campaign , presidential election , public relations , law , business , computer security , computer science
Concerns about ethical abuses in televised political advertising have grown substantially as a result of developing video technology. This project was designed to analyze the way in which modern computer and audio/video technologies have been used to create ethically suspect political spots in political campaigns. After suggesting some guidelines that might be used to evaluate technological distortions, the paper reports the results of a content analysis that suggests that 1992 and 1996 presidential spots exhibited a dramatic increase in the use of such technological manipulations. Results indicate that such distortions are more likely to occur in negative ads than in positive ones. The paper also reports preliminary results from experimental studies showing that exposure to spots with technological manipulations does enhance sponsoring candidate image and voting, while diminishing that of the opponent.