Televised Political Advertising Effects: Evaluating Responses during the 2000 Robb-Allen Senatorial Election

Abstract

The Virginia Senate campaign between incumbent Democratic Senator Chuck Robb and Republican challenger George Allen was widely touted as one of the most crucial elections in the battle for the Senate. This study presents a pretest / posttest causal exploration of advertising effects for a series of ads aired during early October 2000. Political image evaluations, emotion, and cynicism were linked in effects for the 93 research participants. Findings reveal that emotional responses to ads were strong predictors of posttest candidate image evaluations. Furthermore, participant responses indicate that ads eliciting fearful emotions are significant predictors of overall cynicism. Moment-by-moment responses to the ads show that respondents' evaluation of the ads was strongly associated with the valence of the message strategy and the emotional content occurring at the various points in the ad.