Negative Election Advertising and Its Impact Research Paper

Negative Election Advertising and Its Impact - Research Paper Example Negative advertising has steadily increased from the 1960s, and the messages emanating from these campaigns include  attacks  focused  on  individuals and their personal characteristics and issues or attacks that may be relevant or irrelevant to issues being handled at that moment. In this context, Jamieson  in her researches  suggested  that  negative advertisements focus  mainly on an adversary ’s failure  and are different from  contrast advertisements, where the latter provides  Ã¢â‚¬Å"explicit  comparisons  between  the  candidates’  qualities,  records  or  proposals† (Jamieson 99). Researchers have suggested that specific factors often affect the style and mode of negative advertising, such as certain traits of a candidate, characteristics like his or her political status, or gender of the candidate. Researchers further suggest  that  candidates appearing to trail during campaigns generally prefer using negative advertisements to gain a favorable position.  However, when differences between candidates are very small and one candidate is seen to be leading the campaign by a small margin, that person may resort to negative advertising to  maintain  and the gap and stop the opponents from catching up. The  gender of  the main  candidate  and  his or her adversary,  party  affiliations,  and  dissimilitude in  election  funding (between the chief candidate and his opponent)  also  affect the use of negative  advertising. A majority of the researches, until date, have explored negative advertising based on candidate dissimilarities. Various scholars have contended that gender is one of the crucial factors during choosing political campaign strategies where women candidates tend to relay their electoral messages (rhetoric) to the public in a different manner, owing to stereotypes that are gender-based.  Ã‚