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Abstract
Televised political advertising is a now a major element of virtually every contested race for major elective office in this country. Does all that paid media have a significant impact on the perceptions and candidate preferences of viewers? Previous findings have been mixed. The results of two separate quasiexperimental studies in Kansas and New York state suggest that (1) under conditions of low viewer involvement, even a single exposure to a televised spot can have a substantial effect on targeted components of viewer imagery; (2) changes in discrete image elements can be used to generate related changes in global affect—a variable known to bear a strong relationship to voting choice and other political behaviors; and (3) message elements which appear to reference directly verifiable concrete indictors may be more effective in producing change in global affect than those which require the viewer to extrapolate and make inferences.