Political AdvertisingResearch, teaching and personal stuff.Munger review of The Winning Message- (Found July 2, 2008 ) I just read Michael Munger's perceptive, and very funny, review of Adam Simon's The Winning Message: Candidate Behavior, Campaign Discourse, and Democracy (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002). Munger summarizes Simon's argument that political campaigns are about persuading unattached voters, who tend to have moderate views. Candidates try to focus campaigns on issues that it is in their advantage to discuss, which are rarely the same issues on which their opponents want to campaign. So debate...http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2003/12/08#Munger01 Female combativeness in election posters- (Found July 2, 2008 ) Gidengil and Everitt's article "Gender and Reported Speech in Campaign News Coverage" (Political Communication 20: 209-232, 2003) is making me think about the gender aspects of posters. The authors report research that women candidates can -- and do -- stress their combative side, i.e. stereotypically masculine traits, without losing their stereotypically feminine attributes. But if they overemphasize combativeness the media focus on this to the exclusion of the candidate's other aspects.http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2003/12/08#gender01 Working on our next article- (Found July 2, 2008 ) Brian Masshardt sent me his ideas for our next article on Japanese election posters. The focus of this article will probably be on situating Japanese election posters in theories of political communications. As well, of course, as presenting our analysis of the posters from the General Election last month.http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2003/12/07#Article01 City council elections in Saitama- (Found July 2, 2008 ) This morning I took photographs of council election posters in Ageo and Asaka Cities (both in Saitama). I haven't checked the lists of candidates and affiliations, but surprisingly few posters in these two elections stated that the candidate was an independent. Have independent candidates stopped making a sales point of their independence Odagiri Seisaku was back with another eery line-drawing.http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2003/12/06#SaitamaCityC01 Berlusconi- (Found July 2, 2008 ) The Economist notes that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi did not allow any other politicians' faces to appear on his party's election posters. "Then, in 2001, Mr Berlusconi led a highly personal campaign. His candidates were banned from putting their faces on posters: only pictures of the eternally tanned and smiling leader would do." "The opposition finds its man", 13 November 2003.http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2003/11/26#Italy01 Hirosaki Mayoral Election posters- (Found July 2, 2008 ) Anthony Rausch of Hirosaki University kindly reports: "there are two candidates running, the incumbent Kanazawa (male, 72 years old, jimin, with suisen from komei and shiji from shamin) and Shimoda (female 63, most famous around here for being the riji of a private junior college). If I noticed correctly, she had the number one spot on the election poster boards - her poster is simply a face-shot - I will have to look at what she is wearing and what sort of background there is - as well...http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2004/01/28#HirosakiMayor01 Mr. Trippi's commission- (Found July 2, 2008 ) Following Joe Trippi's departure as Howard Dean's campaign manager following defeats in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, the New York Times has noted the campaign's financial arrangements with its media firm. "Tricia Enright, the campaign's communications director, said Dr. Dean was forming "a new creative team" to overhaul its television advertisements. She said the campaign was not firing its media firm, in which Mr. Trippi is a partner. Many Dean supporters have been critical of...http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2004/01/31#Trippi01 Attack Ads and Voters' Memories- (Found July 2, 2008 ) John and James Geer's article in the March 2003 issue of Political Behavior makes an interesting challenge to the conventional wisdom regarding the effects of negative political advertising. Using the Information Processing Approach of experimental psychology, they recorded dummy radio campaign ads and evaluated students' recall of them. The Geers found that negative ads do not stick in voters' memories significantly more or less than positive ads. This finding supports the argument that...http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2004/07/12#attackAds1 Browsing Alone- (Found July 2, 2008 ) In the April-June issue of Political Communication Eric Uslaner analyses two surveys of Internet users' behavior and attitudes to challenge the arguments advanced by Putnam and others that the Internet is accelerating the erosion of American social capital begun by television. Uslaner finds that people who are more trusting of other people are if anything slightly more likely to use the Net than those who are less trusting. But starting to use the Internet makes people neither more nor less.http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2004/07/12#trust US Presidential Candidates Increase Web Advertising- (Found July 2, 2008 ) An article on BizReport tells how Bush and Kerry are increasing their use of advertisements on websites. Neither party will reveal how much it is spending on online advertising, although it is certain to be much less than what they are spending on TV ads. There is considerable potential for targeting political ads at particular sectors of the electorate. Presidential Ad War Escalates Online 31 May 2004, BizReport.http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_lewis/blog/2004/06/01#WebAds1 |