Advances in the Study of Political Advertising

Abstract

One of the biggest recent advances in the study of political advertising has been the availability of systematic sources of data on when and where ads air—and their content. In this piece, we review the various data sources that scholars have used to study political advertising, focusing on their strengths and weaknesses. We then discuss recent studies that have employed data on political advertising to examine the effects of ad exposure on citizens' attitudes and political behaviors, how the content of advertising varies, and how ads have been targeted in recent political campaigns. We follow that with our own empirical contribution—an analysis of trends in advertising content, including negativity and policy focus—over the past 16 years.

KEYWORDS:

• ad tone
• campaign targeting
• political advertising

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Jenny Holland for her valuable assistance with this research and Ken Goldstein and the Wisconsin Advertising Project for data from 2000 through 2008.

We are also grateful to The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Sunlight Foundation, Wesleyan University, Bowdoin College, Washington State University and Wesleyan's Quantitative Analysis Center for their support in making the Wesleyan Media Project's tracking of advertising in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles possible.

Notes

Information about the Oklahoma archive is available online at http://pcc.ou.edu/Archive (accessed July 9, 2014).

The list of published materials from this search is available from the authors on request.

Almost all of the 2006, 2010, and 2012 ads in the database have been coded. Inter-coder reliability tests and data checking are ongoing, though. Any discrepancies between the numbers reported here (e.g., the percentage of ads that were negative) and the final released numbers should be very small.

See the project's website: http://wiscadproject.wisc.edu/. In the fall of 2014, the Wesleyan Media Project will release the full set of 2010 data and the congressional data from 2012. For more information see http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu. The 2000 data cover the top 75 media markets in the United States, while subsequent years cover either the top 100 or all 210 markets, depending on the year.

For the ad data between 1998 and 2004, coders indicated only the first four issue mentions. Since 2006, this limit has been lifted, although rarely do coders identify more than four issues.

It should be noted that the data here have one limitation in looking for targeting strategies based on viewership trends. The Wisconsin and Wesleyan archives only have data for political ads aired on local broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox) or for national cable buys, meaning that the data do not track local cable (i.e., ads aired on the Golf Network only in Detroit). Although local cable purchases constitute a small proportion of political advertising, it is likely to grow in future elections as campaigns seek to microtarget sub-constituencies.

For example, using data from a 2010 survey, the Pew Center reported that 51 percent of Republicans, 54 percent of Democrats, and 48 percent of independents tuned in regularly to local television news. The next most used medium was daily newspapers, which drew 45 percent of Republicans, 41 percent of Democrats, and only 38 percent of Independents (Pew Center for the People & the Press 2010, “Americans Spending More Time Following the News. Ideological News Sources: Who Watches and Why.” Released September 12, 2010. Available at http://people-press.org/2010/09/12/americans-spending-more-time-following-the-news/; accessed July 7, 2010.

Oprah viewership statistics come from Aswini Anburajan on NBC News' “First Read” website: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2007/12/07/4425062-breaking-down-oprahs-numbers. Accessed on July 6, 2011.

The Wisconsin Advertising project used storyboards (a visual image taken every few seconds along with a transcription of the voiceover) for coding advertising. But the Wesleyan Media Project in 2010 and 2012 used the actual videos of ads, allowing for the coding of things such as the music, images, and voiceover.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Travis N. Ridout

Travis N. Ridout is Thomas S. Foley Distinguished Professor of Government and Public Policy and associate professor in the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at Washington State University. Most recently, he is author, with Michael Franz, of The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising (Temple University Press, 2010). He has also published extensively in the field of political communication with a focus on political advertising.

Michael M. Franz

Michael Franz is associate professor of government and legal studies at Bowdoin College. His research interests include campaign finance and political advertising. He is the author or coauthor of four books, including Choices and Changes: Interest Groups in the Electoral Process (2008).

Erika Franklin Fowler

Erika Franklin Fowler is assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University and co-director, with Franz and Ridout, of the Wesleyan Media Project's real-time tracking of political advertising. Her work on political advertising and local media coverage of politics and policy has been published in political science, communication, law/policy, and medical journals.