A SPOT CHECK - CASTING DOUBT ON THE DEMOBILIZING EFFECT OF ATTACK ADVERTISING

Theory: Recent research contends that campaign ''attack'' advertising demobilizes the electorate, with particularly strong effects among pol itical Independents. We dispute this claim, arguing instead that there is little reason to expect a powerful relationship between the tone o f campaign advertising and voter turnout. Attack advertising may depre ss turnout among some voters, but it is likely to stimulate others by increasing their store of political information about the candidates, by increasing the degree to which they care about the election's outco me, or by increasing ties to their party's nominee. Hypothesis: The am ount of a campaign's attack political advertising will be unrelated to overall voter turnout and to turnout among Independents. Methods: We employ a multi-method research design, combining a systematic content analysis of presidential campaign advertisements from 1960 to 1992 wit h aggregate data on turnout and the pooled National Election Studies s urvey data set. Correlational, linear, and logistic regression analyse s are performed. Results: Controlling for other variables known to inf luence turnout, we find that attack advertising does not influence eit her overall turnout rates or individual self-reported votes. Similarly , we find no demobilizing effect for negative advertisements among Ind ependent voters. Further survey analyses show that the effect of attac k advertisements on voter withdrawal is weakest among individuals who are most highly attentive to the mass media, and thus who are most lik ely to have read about or seen the negativity of the campaign.