Page 122 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

ADVER TISING

Successful in 1988 (in so far as he won), Bush’s negatives in the
1992 campaign against Bill Clinton did not prevent the latter from
winning. One ad, for example, highlighted Clinton’s avoidance of
the draft in the 1960s, asking viewers if this was the kind of man
they would wish to see as US Commander-in-Chief. Other ads referred
to well-known Clinton lapses, such as smoking (but not inhaling)
marijuana and having extra-marital affairs. Clinton won nevertheless,
the voters apparently regarding such peccadilloes as irrelevant to his
presidential potential, or at the very least outweighed by what they
perceived as Bush’s poor record. This failure suggests that the fears
of some observers as to the impact of negative political advertising
on the democratic process are overstated. Ansolabehere and Iyengar,
for example, state that negative ads ‘suppress voter turnout’, are
responsible for ‘record lows in political participation, and record
highs in public cynicism and alienation’ and ‘thus pose a serious
anti-democratic threat’ (1995, p.9). We might just as reasonably
argue, however, not least on the evidence of two Clinton election
victories, won against ferocious negative advertising from his
opponents, that the effects of such messages are heavily qualified by
other features of the political environment, and by the voters’
readiness to discount them if they do not resonate.

A typology of political advertising
As political advertising evolved in the United States political scientists
attempted to identify the main stylistic conventions of the genre.
Based on an analysis of more than 30 years of political spots, one
observer has listed eight types (Devlin, 1986).
In the beginning, as already noted in our discussion of ‘Eisenhower
Answers America’, ads were primitive, in so far as their rehearsed,
constructed quality was obvious to the viewer.
Then came talking head spots, designed ‘to focus on an issue and
allow the candidate to convey an image impression that he can handle
the issues, and most importantly, that he can handle the job’ (Ibid.,
p.26). An early example of this type was Richard Nixon’s 1956
‘Checkers’ speech delivered to the nation on paid-for television time,
and in which, as Eisenhower’s vice-presidential running mate, he
sought to counter allegations of corruption. During the 1992
campaign the format was used by Ross Perot to address the American
people on economic issues.
The aforementioned negative type of political ad is generally
accepted to have fully emerged in the 1960s, becoming more visible

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