Taking Aim At Attack Advertising

Negative campaigning is a central component of politics in the United States. Yet, until now, demonstrating the impact of combative advertising on voters has been elusive. How can we reconcile the findings of a plethora of studies with the methods of politicians? This book cuts through to the central issue: how negative advertising influences voters' attitudes and actions. Focusing on U.S. senatorial campaigns, Kim Fridkin and Patrick Kenney draw from surveys, experiments, facial expression analysis, content analyses, and focus groups. They develop the "tolerance and tactics theory of negativity" that marries citizens' tolerance for negativity with campaign messages varying in their civility and relevance and demonstrate how citizens' beliefs and behaviors are affected. Using this original framework, they find harsh and relevant messages influence voters' decisions, especially for people with less tolerance for negativity. And, irrelevant and uncivil advertisements demobilize voters, with low tolerance individuals affected most sharply.

Negative campaigning is a central component of politics in the United States. Yet, until now, demonstrating the impact of combative advertising on voters has been elusive. How can we reconcile the findings of a plethora of studies with the methods of politicians? This book cuts through to the central issue: how negative advertising influences voters' attitudes and actions. Focusing on U.S. senatorial campaigns, Kim Fridkin and Patrick Kenney draw from surveys, experiments, facial expression analysis, content analyses, and focus groups. They develop the "tolerance and tactics theory of negativity" that marries citizens' tolerance for negativity with campaign messages varying in their civility and relevance and demonstrate how citizens' beliefs and behaviors are affected. Using this original framework, they find harsh and relevant messages influence voters' decisions, especially for people with less tolerance for negativity. And, irrelevant and uncivil advertisements demobilize voters, with low tolerance individuals affected most sharply.

This text reports the results of a national study of voter reactions to the 1992 presidential campaign and analyses the print and network television coverage of the campaign. It also provides a comparative look at television news coverage of presidential ads and campaigns from 1976 through to 1992.

Winner of the 2009 San Francisco Book Festival Award (Wild Card category) "I'm not sorry I tried...if successful, the assassination...just might have triggered the kind of chaos that could have started the upheaval of change." --Sara Jane Moore in 1976 Journalist Geri Spieler met would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore while she was in prison; Taking Aim at the President is based on over two decades of interviews as well as independant research. Spieler follows Moore's actions from her childhood in a small West Virginia town to her release from prison in December 2007. Moore's life was never conventional, and along the way she entered and dropped out of the military, was married five times, and was both a political radical and an FBI informant. Focusing on the complex psychology and motivations of a quintessentially desperate housewife and the only woman to ever fire a bullet at an American president, Spieler delivers a nuanced portrait of an elusive person and a fascinating glimpse back at a turbulent period in American history.