Friday, October 27, 2006
commentary: politics and media (part 2)
Based on my post yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with Kevin last night (since he is my go-to poli sci expert).
Ironically enough, he had just spoken to one of his discussion classes about that topic yesterday, bringing up a study (don't know the reference but I'll ask Kevin to provide it in a comment) that said that negative ads are more effective in increasing citizen cynicism than getting more voters to the polls. Not surprising.
He also mentioned something about how the cynicism created (which may slightly decrease voter turnout if anything) will probably work in favor of Republicans. From my non-expert perspective, this makes sense because if you assume the same people are voting most likely for the same party they did last time, incumbents will have the advantage.
While we were on the topic, I started mulling the differences in political ads across the country (or at least on the two coasts, where I've spent roughly equal time this past year). Broken down, there are three main types of political commercials:
- Positive: extolling the Candidate-in-Question (CIQ)'s possibility to affect positive change.
-Comparative: placing the CIQ and opponent side by side and comparing their stance on key issues (only works if their stances are different and with a certain amount of bias)
-Negative: the only time the CIQ shows up is at the end saying "I approve this message;" other than that the ad is all about the opponent.
Over the summer, back in California, I noticed more of the Positive and Comparative (I don't remember any negative ads, although I'm sure there were some as well). For example: Arnold's walking forward ads (although he does have those walking backwards Angelides ones too), and the primary battle between Phil Angelides and Steve Westly (although it wasn't always a nice race, it's worlds apart from what I see here in NY).
Since I've been back in New York, however, most ads are more slanderous than those I've seen on the West Coast. The only exception I can think of are Jeanine Pirro's ads that talk about the types of people she's helped as DA (apparently she's saved women from abuse and gays from persecution, or something). But then again, she's got enough controversy without slandering her opponents (oh wait, she does that too).
Anyone else notice any trends? Any favorite/non-favorite commercials? Any more categories to add? Will this continue in the future?
Ironically enough, he had just spoken to one of his discussion classes about that topic yesterday, bringing up a study (don't know the reference but I'll ask Kevin to provide it in a comment) that said that negative ads are more effective in increasing citizen cynicism than getting more voters to the polls. Not surprising.
He also mentioned something about how the cynicism created (which may slightly decrease voter turnout if anything) will probably work in favor of Republicans. From my non-expert perspective, this makes sense because if you assume the same people are voting most likely for the same party they did last time, incumbents will have the advantage.
While we were on the topic, I started mulling the differences in political ads across the country (or at least on the two coasts, where I've spent roughly equal time this past year). Broken down, there are three main types of political commercials:
- Positive: extolling the Candidate-in-Question (CIQ)'s possibility to affect positive change.
-Comparative: placing the CIQ and opponent side by side and comparing their stance on key issues (only works if their stances are different and with a certain amount of bias)
-Negative: the only time the CIQ shows up is at the end saying "I approve this message;" other than that the ad is all about the opponent.
Over the summer, back in California, I noticed more of the Positive and Comparative (I don't remember any negative ads, although I'm sure there were some as well). For example: Arnold's walking forward ads (although he does have those walking backwards Angelides ones too), and the primary battle between Phil Angelides and Steve Westly (although it wasn't always a nice race, it's worlds apart from what I see here in NY).
Since I've been back in New York, however, most ads are more slanderous than those I've seen on the West Coast. The only exception I can think of are Jeanine Pirro's ads that talk about the types of people she's helped as DA (apparently she's saved women from abuse and gays from persecution, or something). But then again, she's got enough controversy without slandering her opponents (oh wait, she does that too).
Anyone else notice any trends? Any favorite/non-favorite commercials? Any more categories to add? Will this continue in the future?
# posted by ange : 11:49 AM
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atually, i read that republicans would do poorly. democrates would continue to vote dem. and since the repubs in office haven't been doing a good job, republs would be more willing to go democrat.
argh, and i hate negative campaigning. that just seems to say 'vote for the lesser of two evils, me!'
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