Truth in Advertising? Visuals, Sound, and the Factual Accuracy of Political Advertising

Abstract

This paper uses a unique data set from the 2008 election to examine the extent to which the information contained in positive and negative political advertising is factually correct. The current conventional wisdom about negative advertising is that it is engages the public, contains more issue information than positive advertising, and is more specific and evidence-based. The normative inference that follows is that negative advertising is good for democracy because an engaged public with more information is more desirable than a disengaged public with less information.

While it may well be the case that negative ads contain more information and are more likely to engage voters, what has been missing from most of this analysis up to now is whether the content of negative advertising is more or less likely to be accurate. In 2008 the Video Monitoring Service provided us with video and frequency and spending data on all the presidential advertising on television and radio. In a unique exercise we checked all the claims made in positive and negative ads (most have supporting sources; 68% in 2000 according to Franz et al. 2008), using fact checking websites like adwatches, or our own validation of a candidate’s record. This included not only sourced claims but statements such as "is a leader in Congress", where we checked how many bills the candidate initiated or simply signed on to, etc. or "is inexperienced", where we looked at types of jobs held, ages and resume's of other candidates running for office We also coded all the ads as positive, negative or contrast using the Wisconsin Advertising Project's criteria, Jamieson's "attack score" and Geer's coding of appeals.

Keywords: advertising, communication, 2008 election