NEGATIVE POLITICAL ADVERTISING AND VOTING INTENT - THE ROLE OF INVOLVEMENT AND ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION-SOURCES

Previous research on negative political advertising has found both int ended and backlash effects, indicating that the impact of these ads is likely to be contingent on other factors. The current study examines some potentially important contingent variables-level of involvement a nd attention to both newspapers and television for political informati on. Regression analyses indicate that both enduring and situational in volvement and attention to television news increase the impact of nega tive political ads on voting decisions. Although it initially appears that attention to newspaper is unrelated to the impact of negative ads , analysis of covariance shows that newspaper reading actually reduces the impact of negative ads after controlling for other variables.