This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Koch, J. W. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Campaign Advertisements' Impact on Voter Certainty and Knowledge of House Candidates' Ideological Positions

State University of New York at Geneseo, koch{at}geneseo.edu

One expectation for American election campaigns is that they inform citizens about candidates' policy inclinations, clarifying the policy directions advocated by the major party nominees. Evidence from the 1998 elections to the House of Representatives indicates that the more negative issue advertisements were broadcast, the more confident citizens became that they knew the targeted candidate's ideological position. However, the more negative issue advertisements about a candidate aired, the greater citizens' perceptual error of the candidate's ideological position. Issue attack ads lead citizens to believe they know more than they actually do, failing to produce the democratic ideal of an informed electorate.

Key Words: campaign advertising • certainty • candidate ideology • House elections

References

• Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Shanto Iyengar. 1995. Going negative: How political advertisements shrink and polarize the electorate. New York: Free Press.
• Ansolabehere, Stephen, James M. Snyder, and Charles Stewart III. 2001. Candidate positioning in U.S. House elections. American Journal of Political Science 45:136-59.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Bartels, Larry M. 2000. Campaign quality: Standards for evaluation, benchmarks for reform. In Campaign reform: Insights and evidence, ed. Larry M. Bartels and Lynn Vavreck. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Buchanan, Bruce. 2000. Regime support and campaign reform. In Campaign reform: Insights and evidence, ed. Larry M. Bartels and Lynn Vavreck. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Coleman, John J., and Paul F. Manna. 2000. Congressional campaign spending and the quality of democracy. Journal of Politics 62:757-89.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Erikson, Robert S., and Gerald C. Wright. 1997. Voters, candidates, and issues in congressional elections. In Congress reconsidered, ed. Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce Oppenheimer. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.
• Freedman, Paul, and Ken Goldstein. 1999. Measuring media exposure and the effects of negative campaign ads. American Journal of Political Science 43:1189-1208.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Geer, John G. 2005. Attacking democracy: A defense of negativity in presidential campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Gilovich, Thomas, Dale Griffin, and Daniel Kahneman. 2002. Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Hetherington, Marc J. 2004. Why trust matters: Declining political trust and the demise of American liberalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Holbrook, Allyson L., Jon A. Krosnick, Penny S. Visser, Wendi L. Gardner, and John T. Cacioppo. 2001. Attitudes toward presidential candidates and political parties: Initial optimism, inertial first impressions, and a focus on flaws. American Journal of Political Science 45:930-50.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Husted, Thomas A., Lawrence W. Kenny, and Rebecca B. Morton. 1995. Constituent errors in assessing their senators. Public Choice 83:251-71.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Jacobson, Gary C. 1999. Impeachment politics in the 1998 congressional elections. Political Science Quarterly 114:33-40.
• ---. 2004. The politics of congressional elections. New York: Longman.
• Kelley, Stanley, Jr. 1960. Political campaigning: Problems in creating an informed electorate. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
• King, Gary, James Honaker, Anne Joseph, and Kenneth Scheve. 1999. Analyzing incomplete political science data: An alternative algorithm for multiple imputation. http://gking.harvard.edu/stats.shtml.
• Koch, Jeffrey W. 2003. Being certain versus being right: Citizen certainty and accuracy of house candidates' ideological orientations. Political Behavior 25:221-46.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Kuklinski, James H., Paul J. Quirk, Jennifer Jerit, David Schwieder, and Robert F. Rich. 2000. Misinformation and the currency of citizenship. Journal of Politics 62:791-816.
• Marcus, George E., and Michael B. MacKuen. 1993. Anxiety, enthusiasm and the vote: The emotional underpinnings of learning and involvement during presidential campaigns. American Political Science Review 87:672-85.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• Mayer, William G.. 1996. In defense of negative campaigning. Political Science Quarterly 111 (3): 437-55.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
• McGinniss, Joe. 1969. The selling of the president. New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Nisbett, Richard, and Lee Ross. 1980. Human inference: Strategies and shortcoming of social judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Patterson, Thomas E. 1980. The mass media election: How Americans choose their president. New York: Praeger.
• Price, Vincent, and John Zaller. 1993. Who gets the news? Alternative measures of news reception and their implications for research. Public Opinion Quarterly 57:133-64.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
• Shepsle, Kenneth A. 1972. The strategy of ambiguity: uncertainty and electoral competitiveness. American Political Science Review 66:555-68.[CrossRef][Web of Science]

This version was published on December 1, 2008

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 4, 609-621 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1065912908316804


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Koch, J. W. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?