J/47Te address the effects of negative campaign advertising on turnout. Using a unique jfjJ \ experimental design in which advertising tone is manipulated within the identical X V t audiovisual context, we find that exposure to negative advertisements dropped intentions to vote by 5%. We then replicate this result through an aggregate-level analysis of turnout and campaign tone in the 1992 Senate elections. Finally, we show that the demobilizing effects of negative campaigns are accompanied by a weakened sense of political efficacy. Voters who watch negative advertisements become more cynical about the responsiveness of public officials and the electoral process. It is generally taken for granted that political campaigns boost citizens' involvement-their interest in the election, awareness of and information about current issues, and sense that individual opinions matter. Since Lazarsfeld's pioneering work (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1948), it has been thought that campaign activity in connection with recurring elections enables parties and candidates to mobilize their likely constituents and "recharge" their partisan sentiments. Voter turnout is thus considered to increase directly with "the level of political stimulation to which the electorate is subjected" (Campbell et al. 1966, 42; Patterson and Caldeira 1983). The argument that campaigns are inherently "stimulating" experiences can be questioned on a variety of grounds. American campaigns have changed dra

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2082710.pdf

Does Attack Advertising Demobilize the Electorate

A meta-analysis considered 59 quantitative studies containing data concerned with partisan media bias in presidential election campaigns since 1948. Types of bias considered were gatekeeping bias, which is the preference for selecting stories from one party or the other; coverage bias, which considers the relative amounts of coverage each party receives; and statement bias, which focuses on the favorability of coverage toward one party or the other. On the whole, no significant biases were found for the newspaper industry. Biases in newsmagazines were virtually zero as well. However, meta-analysis of studies of television network news showed small, measurable, but probably insubstantial coverage and statement biases.

Media bias in presidential elections: a meta-analysis

This article explores the impact of strategy-based campaign coverage on turnout and confidence in government. Recent theoretical advances suggest that variables such as sophistication and involvement frequently moderate media exposure effects. We hypothesize that the impact of strategy frames will be moderated by political involvement and sophistication. In an experiment, we precisely isolate and manipulate particular story elements that have been said to foster public cynicism: the strategic interpretation of candidate motives, the presence of polling results, and the use of war or game metaphors to describe the campaign. Relative to the issue-oriented coverage, strategy frames boost the number of strategy-based comments people offer when describing the campaign and depress issue-based commentary. As expected, framing effects on turnout, trust in government, civic duty, and the perceived meaningfulness of elections are moderated by involvement and sophistication. Nonpartisans and those with less than a c...

A spiral of cynicism for some: The contingent effects of campaign news frames on participation and confidence in government

A large percentage of the public believes that the news media are biased, and the majority of these individuals consider the direction of bias to be against their own viewpoints. Past research has examined how individual factors such as strength of partisanship or extent of political involvement heighten bias perceptions, but little attention has been paid to interpersonal factors such as the ideological similarity or dissimilarity of personal communication networks. Results of a national survey show that perceptions of media bias were unrelated to the overall amount of discussion but were positively related to conversations with ideologically like-minded individuals. Moreover, the impact of conversations with similar others was stronger among Republicans than among Democrats, a finding consistent with recent work on news self-coverage of media bias claims.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3792512.pdf

The Impact of Individual and Interpersonal Factors on Perceived News Media Bias

Public perception of a biased news media, particularly media biased in a liberal direction, has increased over the past 3 presidential elections. To examine what might be influencing this public opinion, the authors look at shifts in public perception of media bias, press coverage of the topic of media bias, and the balance in valence coverage of presidential candidates—all during the 1988, 1992, and 1996 presidential elections. Their results suggest that the rise in public perception that news media are liberally biased is not the result of bias in valence news coverage of the candidates, but, rather, due to increasing news self-coverage that focuses on the general topic of bias in news content. Furthermore, the increased claims of media bias come primarily from conservative elites who have proclaimed a liberal bias that is viewed as including the entire media industry.

/pdf/elite-cues-and-media-bias-in-presidential-campaigns-1c5c73kpdh.pdf

Elite Cues and Media Bias in Presidential Campaigns Explaining Public Perceptions of a Liberal Press

Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Power Play Chapter 3 The Reagan Reaction Chapter 4 The Search for Substance Chapter 5 Whose Agenda is it, Anyway? Chapter 6 Freeze-Frame Journalism Chapter 7 The Media's Character Test Chapter 8 Credibility in the Balance Chapter 9 The Talk Show Campaign Chapter 10 Putting People First Chapter 11 Postscript: There They Go Again

Good Intentions Make Bad News: Why Americans Hate Campaign Journalism

The Video Campaign: Network Coverage of the 1988 Primaries

/pdf/was-tv-election-news-better-this-time-a-content-analysis-of-3lftb692ga.pdf

Richard Noyes

Papers

Good Intentions Make Bad News: Why Americans Hate Campaign Journalism

The Video Campaign: Network Coverage of the 1988 Primaries

Was TV Election News Better This Time?: A Content Analysis of 1988 and 1992 Campaign Coverage