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Candidate Attacks and Voter Aversion: The Uncertain Link Between Negativity and Campaign Satisfaction
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assessments of campaigns generally. Thus, while negative advertising may be distasteful to many, it cannot wholly explain dissatisfaction with politicians and their campaigns. II. Theory and Expectations
Inconclusive research on negative campaigning and turnout has led scholars first to more nuanced
definitions of what constitutes “negative.” Jamieson, Waldman, and Sherr (2000) focus on political advertising and argue in particular for a distinction between “advocacy, “attack,” and “contrast” advertising. Advocacy involves solely positive messages about the candidate being advertised. Attacks involve solely negative messages about the opponent. Contrast advertising also involves claims about the opponent, but these are paired with statements about the candidate so that the overall message is more balanced. Jamieson and her co-authors write, “when we conflate comparison/contrast with attack under the heading of negativity, we blame candidates for offering a form of discourse that is both informative and accountable” (49). Our own classification of television advertising takes into account this potentially important distinction.
A second line of inquiry concerns voters themselves, and in particular whether and why there is
slippage between how they perceive the campaign’s tone and how one might objectively characterize that tone. Sigelman and Kugler (2003) examine three campaigns (including one we examine here)—the 1998 California, Illinois, and Georgia gubernatorial campaigns—and find that voters’ perceptions of the campaign did not accord with how social scientists would gauge the tone. Moreover, there was considerable cross-sectional variance in perceptions of the campaign, variance that was related to such things as political information, whereby informed respondents were likely to perceive the campaign as more negative. This paper is also concerned with the “slippage” between what actually happens in the campaign and what voters perceive, as well as with the individual-level attributes associated with such perceptions.
We posit that the link between negativity in campaigning and campaign dissatisfaction requires three
steps in the minds of voters. First, they have to recognize negativity as such. Second, they have to be averse to the use of negativity, or to a particular instance of negativity. Third, that aversion must then lead them to develop a generalized negative attitude about the candidates and/or the campaign.
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Only after these cognitive
steps have taken place could negativity conceivably produce a decline in turnout or affect vote choice. We hypothesize that none of these steps is guaranteed. First, voters may not recognize changes in negativity—the kind of slippage discussed by Sigelman and Kugler. Second, voters may not oppose all uses of negativity. Finally, opinions about a campaign and about the candidates will be based on many factors, and negativity could prove relatively minor.
2
We remain agnostic for the moment on how attitudes about the candidates are related to attitudes about the campaign
more generally. It may be that these should be kept distinct, or it may be that they are so strongly interrelated that distinguishing them is unnecessary. Ultimately we will employ indicators that refer to the candidates by name and that
refer to campaigns more generally.
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| | Authors: Sides, John., Trost, Christine. and Lipsitz, Keena. |
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assessments of campaigns generally. Thus, while negative advertising may be distasteful to many, it cannot
wholly explain dissatisfaction with politicians and their campaigns.
II. Theory and Expectations
Inconclusive research on negative campaigning and turnout has led scholars first to more nuanced
definitions of what constitutes “negative.” Jamieson, Waldman, and Sherr (2000) focus on political
advertising and argue in particular for a distinction between “advocacy, “attack,” and “contrast” advertising.
Advocacy involves solely positive messages about the candidate being advertised. Attacks involve solely
negative messages about the opponent. Contrast advertising also involves claims about the opponent, but
these are paired with statements about the candidate so that the overall message is more balanced. Jamieson
and her co-authors write, “when we conflate comparison/contrast with attack under the heading of
negativity, we blame candidates for offering a form of discourse that is both informative and accountable”
(49). Our own classification of television advertising takes into account this potentially important distinction.
A second line of inquiry concerns voters themselves, and in particular whether and why there is
slippage between how they perceive the campaign’s tone and how one might objectively characterize that
tone. Sigelman and Kugler (2003) examine three campaigns (including one we examine here)—the 1998
California, Illinois, and Georgia gubernatorial campaigns—and find that voters’ perceptions of the campaign
did not accord with how social scientists would gauge the tone. Moreover, there was considerable cross-
sectional variance in perceptions of the campaign, variance that was related to such things as political
information, whereby informed respondents were likely to perceive the campaign as more negative. This
paper is also concerned with the “slippage” between what actually happens in the campaign and what voters
perceive, as well as with the individual-level attributes associated with such perceptions.
We posit that the link between negativity in campaigning and campaign dissatisfaction requires three
steps in the minds of voters. First, they have to recognize negativity as such. Second, they have to be averse
to the use of negativity, or to a particular instance of negativity. Third, that aversion must then lead them to
develop a generalized negative attitude about the candidates and/or the campaign.
2
Only after these cognitive
steps have taken place could negativity conceivably produce a decline in turnout or affect vote choice. We
hypothesize that none of these steps is guaranteed. First, voters may not recognize changes in negativity—
the kind of slippage discussed by Sigelman and Kugler. Second, voters may not oppose all uses of negativity.
Finally, opinions about a campaign and about the candidates will be based on many factors, and negativity
could prove relatively minor.
2
We remain agnostic for the moment on how attitudes about the candidates are related to attitudes about the campaign
more generally. It may be that these should be kept distinct, or it may be that they are so strongly interrelated that
distinguishing them is unnecessary. Ultimately we will employ indicators that refer to the candidates by name and that
refer to campaigns more generally.
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