Truth in advertising? : verbal, visual, and aural lies in political advertising and how they affect the electorate / Barbara Allen and Daniel Stevens.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Allen, Barbara, 1953- author.

Stevens, Daniel (Daniel Peter), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Advertising, Political--United States.

Advertising, Political.

United States.

Political campaigns--United States.

Political campaigns.

Marketing.

Political science.

Physical Description:

xxiv, 452 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Lexington Books, [2019]

Summary:

"This book represents the first systematic effort to examine (1) the factual accuracy of the claims made in an entire political advertising campaign, (2) the visuals and sound cues used in that advertising and their relationship with the tone and accuracy of ads, and (3) the impact of the accuracy of claims on what people know and how they vote in a real campaign. The research is based on several years of labor-intensive coding of the factual accuracy of every claim made in the presidential ads in the 2008 election as well as the ads for the races for the US Congress in Minnesota. We show how the accuracy of political ad claims, the visuals and sound of ads, and ad tone (particularly negativity) are related to voting behavior. We argue that understanding how the accuracy of political ad claims affects voters is now more important than ever. This research has steered clear of the normative question of what such putative gains in knowledge represent, however. Does the content of neg ative advertising enhance voter capacities, such as the ability to locate candidates' issue positions accurately or state reasons to like or dislike candidates based on accurate information about the candidates' traits or issue stands? Does the accuracy of the information in political advertising matter-to voting behavior or vote choice--whether turnout goes up or down? Would voting more, while knowing less that is true be sufficient in a democracy? In studying the effects of advertising tone, such questions about advertising tone have not been asked. Our book redresses this lacuna. We show that negative advertising is more likely to make inaccurate claims. We show that ads making inaccurate claims also use a larger number of visual and sound distortions, perhaps tying up more cognitive capacities while pressing their untruthful arguments. We show links between inaccurate advertising and aggregate turnout, individual turnout, and individual political knowledge. The news is no t good in an age of post-factual democracies."--Publisher's website.

Contents:

Communicating with voters through political advertising: moving beyond ad tone to think about the accuracy of ad claims

Normative political theory, advertising, and political participation

“You can't handle the truth?” Previous research on political advertising

Evaluating the accuracy, visuals, and sound of advertising and their impacts

Anatomy of an ad campaign: what ads say and when they say it

The accuracy of claims made in political advertising

Spectacle, message, and meaning in the visuals and sound of political advertising / Barbara Allen, Daniel Stevens, and Jeffrey Berg

Examining the visuals and sound in political advertising

The effects of ad accuracy on political knowledge and turnout.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 405-443) and index.

Other Format:

Ebook version :

ISBN:

9781498531597

1498531598

OCLC:

1048945558