Summary of Freedman, Franz, and Goldstein: Campaign advertising and democratic citizenship -- Adam Brown, BYU Political Science

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Freedman, Franz, and Goldstein: Campaign advertising and democratic citizenship

Disclaimer. Don't rely on these old notes in lieu of reading the literature, but they can jog your memory. As a grad student long ago, my peers and I collaborated to write and exchange summaries of political science research. I posted them to a wiki-style website. "Wikisum" is now dead but archived here. I cannot vouch for these notes' accuracy, nor can I say who wrote them.

Freedman, Franz, and Goldstein. 2004. Campaign advertising and democratic citizenship. AJPS 48:723-741.

Overview

Though our theories say that debates, news, speeches, and so on are all good for democracy, we often malign candidate advertisements. The authors disagree: Candidate ads also provide meaningful information, and they simultaneously provide useful emotional cues (cf. Brader 2005). People who see these ads, then, should be more informed than other people; this effect is especially strong among those who have the least information about politics to begin with.

Hypotheses

Information hypothesis: "citizens exposed to campaign advertising will actually learn something about the candidates and their messages.
Engagement hypothesis: "due in part to its information-enhancing function and in part to the emotional content of much campaign advertising, ad exposure will cause people to be more interested in a particular election, more cognitively and affectively involved with the campaigns, and ultimately more likely to participate by turning out on Election Day."
Differential effects hypothesis: "these effects will be greatest among those who need the information most: citizens who have lower levels of political information to begin with."

Data

Uses content analysis of ads from various campaigns across the nation: when the ads were shown, during what shows, and in what markets.
By combining this with ANES data about television viewership (times and programs watched) and region, they estimate each respondent's exposure to campaign ads

Findings

They find modest evidence in their favor: "Specifically, our findings show that exposure to campaign advertising produces citizens who are more interested in the election, have more to say about the candidates, are more familiar with who is running, and ultimately, are more likely to vote."

Main contribution

A new, excellent data set of which ads were shown when and where.
And yes, ads to provide some information.

Research on similar subjects

Brader: Striking a responsive chord (5 shared tags)
Clinton and Lapinski: "Targeted" advertising and voter turnout (5 shared tags)
Holbrook, Krosnick, Visser, and Gardner: Attitudes toward presidential candidates (5 shared tags)
Lau, Sigelman, Heldman, and Babbitt: The effects of negative political advertisements (5 shared tags)
Mutz: Effects of "in-your-face" television discourse on perceptions of a legitimate opposition (5 shared tags)
Sigelman and Kugler: Why is research on the effects of negative campaigning so inconclusive (5 shared tags)
Theilmann and Wilhite: Campaign tactics and the decision to attack (5 shared tags)
Zaller: The nature and origins of mass opinion (5 shared tags)

Tags

Freedman, Paul (author) • Franz, Michael (author) • Goldstein, Kenneth (author) • American Politics • Public Opinion • Media Effects • Elections • Campaign Advertisements

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