General Campaign - TV Spots - Content - PresidentialCampaign2004 -The Messages and Their Analysis - William Benoit

General Campaign

Television Spots

What Do TV Spots Talk About (Content of Spots)?

Functions of General Campaign TV Spots

Research which investigates the content of political advertising often check the frequency of three functions of candidate remarks:

acclaims: self-praise, "I will improve education," "I have always been honest," "I will work for a prescription drug benefit," "I care about people like you"

attacks: criticism of opponent, "My opponent will give tax cuts to the rich," "My opponent is trigger-happy and will get us into war," "My opponent fights for big business instead of workers," "My opponent will reduce aid to the poor"

defenses: "The accusation that I will raise taxes is simply false," "My opponent says I will privatize Social Security, but that is not true"

Together, acclaims, attacks, and defenses can work for voters like cost-benefit analysis. Acclaims can increase a candidate's benefits, attacks can increase a candidate's costs, and defenses can reduce alleged costs.

In general television spots from 1952-2000, 60% of the statements were acclaims, 39% of remarks were attacks against opponents, and while defenses occurred, they were relatively rare at 1% of TV spot utterances.

Topics of General Campaign TV Spots

Studies of political advertising research also investigate the two topics of campaign messages: policy and character.

policy: government action and problems that could be addressed by government action, "I lowered taxes in my first term in office," "My opponent sat back while the national debt rose," "I propose to improve the quality of education by requiring accountability," "My opponent favors socialized medicine!"

character: the candidate, personality traits or leadership ability (honesty, courage, compassion), "I have experience in office and can get things done," "My opponent doesn't care about people like you," "You can always trust me," "My opponent is immoral"

General television spots from 1952-2000 focus more on policy issues (61%) than on character or image (39%).

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