Sex still counts: Women's use of televised advertising during the decade of the 80's

Abstract

In an effort to determine if significant differences exist in the televised negative commercials of female and male candidates, the advertising spots used by women who ran for a major political office during the decade of the 80's were compared with a sample used by men running for major political office in those same years. An analysis of the verbal, visual and production strategies contained in the ads revealed that enough differences exist to document the emergence of a female style in the utilization of televised negative advertising.