Issue Ownership for Non-Presidential Television Spots

Abstract

Petrocik's (1996) theory of political party issue ownership predicts that candidates will emphasize the issues on which their own party is considered most effective. This prediction has been confirmed in presidential campaign messages, but it has yet to be tested with non-presidential campaign discourse. Computer content analysis of over 1100 political television spots from 1980 to 2002 (most spots were from 2002) discovered that overall, Democratic candidates discussed their own party's issues more than did Republicans, whereas Republicans discussed Republican issues more than did Democratic candidates. However, local ads and US Senate spots from 2002 did not follow issue ownership predictions (candidates did not discuss their own party's issues significantly more than the other party's issues). Unlike presidential spots, non-presidential advertising discusses Democratic issues more than Republican ones; the Republican Party owns more national or federal issues such as national defense and foreign policy.

Keywords:

• Non-presidential television spots
• Issue ownership theory
• Republican
• Democratic

Notes

1. We would like to thank Amanda Brown, Joel Iverson, Melissa Marek, John McHale, and Roberta Kerr for video-taping political advertisements for us.

2. The ads are not distributed equally across these years; most spots are from more recent campaigns.

3. We agree with Beatty (2002) and Rosenthal, Rosnow, and Rubin (2000) that r is the most appropriate measure of effect size.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

William L. Benoit

William L. Benoit (PhD 1979, Wayne State University) is Professor of Communication at University of Missouri—Columbia, Department of Communication, 115 Switzler Hall, Columbia, MO 65211-2310, USA (Tel: [phone]; Email: [email protected])

David Airne

David Airne (MA, 1998 North Dakota State University; Graduate Candidate University of Missouri—Columbia) is an Instructor at the University of Alabama College of Communication & Information Services, Department of Communication Studies, University of Alabama, Box 870172, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0172, USA (Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; Email: [email protected])