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This study examines the impact of ethical judgments about televised political commercials on global attitude toward the ad. Findings from the quasi-experiment indicate that the "ethical" attribute belongs to a set of salient, "utilitarian" cognitions that influence how political commercials are evaluated. These findings suggest that ethical perceptions really matter. However, certain emotional "hedonic" cognitive responses, which voters say are nonsalient in their overall evaluations of political ads, in fact may circumvent the powerful impact of ethical-and other salient-cognitive elements. Implications for political advertising strategy and public policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Central Europe's first free election, Hungarian campaign architects created a genre of television advertising designed to communicate political party values by linking them with values of national importance. Using Rokeach's two-value typology, this culture-based study analyzes the political commercials produced by the nation's predominant parties in 1990 for their values-related content. Hungarian scholars, media experts and party officials contributed to this interpretive analysis of the campaign's visual images for their reflection of national and political values. Results suggest that political commercials are useful for identifying prevailing values and can contribute to an understanding of a nation's culture. The study has particular importance for advertisers in countries which are undergoing the transition to a free-market economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though operating within a different electoral system, Great Britain is rapidly following in the footsteps of the United States in the area of political communications. Electoral communications, including advertising, have found a place in the British political process. This study seeks to find what place and is based largely on personal interviews with politicians, party officials, broadcast and print journalists, academicians and advertising agency executives. Emphasis is on the marketing and communications efforts of the Conservative Party as the leader in the trend toward American-style campaigning. However, both the Labour Party and SDP/Liberal Alliance are also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of hybrid media campaigning in relation to the authors' claim about how 2016 U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump utilized mass media coverage to secure the American Republican Party's nomination. Political communication in America is addressed, along with populist politicians, celebrity culture, and Trump's blend of politics and entertainment. Publicity and Trump's use of social media platforms such as Twitter during his campaign are assessed.

Public discourse in India's northeastern state Meghalaya is dominated by issues of tribal identity and the threat of being overwhelmed by outsiders. In the context of national elections, local campaigners have to respond to and navigate between the different requirements of national and regional politics. Election campaigns, understood as a negotiation process during which campaigners act as brokers, provide insights into the narratives and characteristics of politics in Meghalaya. Manifestos, leaflets and large-scale events communicate a statement about organisational strength and a candidate's popularity, and subsequently about the capacity to ultimately deliver to the voter. Aesthetics used during campaigning such as music and clothing styles carry messages about the awareness and closeness of the campaigner to the imagination and needs of the local population. Although the entrance of social media into election campaigning is about to change elections and the role of campaigners in Meghalaya, local campaigners will remain important due to their ability to navigate between different levels of politics and to resolve contradictory campaign messages by drawing on different semiotic registers of campaigning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical theorists in the mid-twentieth century argued that behavioral social science by its nature conceptualizes knowledge as the power to predict and control. As such, rather than serving as a source of enlightenment or emancipation, social science risked functioning as a tool for dominating and manipulating the public. The power of this criticism, however, was undermined by the behavioral revolution’s initial failure to produce theories that offered much prognostic power. Recent methodological and technological developments in the social sciences have begun to generate an impressive ability to predict human behavior, especially when combined with new innovations in marketing and computer science. Disturbingly, political campaigns and interest groups, especially in the US, appropriate this new knowledge to try to alter the beliefs and behaviors of voters. This development bodes ill for US democracy and other liberal democracies where the use of these techniques is likely to increase. It turns citizens into objects of manipulation and undermines the public sphere by thwarting public deliberation, aggravating political polarization, and facilitating the spread of misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies have shown that market orientation influences content. However, scant research examines how news organizations with different market orientations covered the same story. This study utilizes textual analysis and long-form interviews to compare coverage of the 2013 St. Louis mayoral race. The study compares the strongly market oriented St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the weakly market oriented St. Louis Beacon. Findings showed major differences in content, especially concerning how the two covered race, periphery candidates and the presentation of campaign issues. These results are interpreted through the lens of gatekeeping theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Some contemporary politicians try to mobilize racial attitudes by conveying implicit racial messages against their opponents—messages in which the racial reference is subtle but recognizable and which attack the opponent for alleged misdeeds. Although targeted politicians have tried a number of different strategies to respond to implicit racial appeals, little is known about the effectiveness of these strategies. Using two survey experiments, we answer the following question: Does calling the appeal “racial” work? That is, does it neutralize the negative effects on the attacked candidate? We find mixed evidence that it does. However, offering a credible justification for the attacked behavior works more consistently. We also test whether effects vary by candidate race. The results suggest that Black candidates’ rhetorical strategies are more constrained than identical White candidates’, but that White Americans are more open to credible arguments and justifications than the previous literature implies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a result of changes in the campaign landscape, candidates have several strategic options available to them, particularly when considering how to respond to voters’ gender stereotypes. The goal of this paper is to understand candidates’ use of strategies based on gender stereotypes by emphasizing either particular issues or particular traits that are commonly associated with one gender or the other. To do this, I developed hypotheses of why candidates might choose a trait or issues strategy based on gender stereotypes. I tested these hypotheses using a large-scale content analysis of candidate websites over four election cycles. I found that female candidates mostly pursued strategies that were consistent with gender stereotypes. Interestingly, female candidates were found to have different strategies on different pages of their websites. I discuss the implications of gender-based strategies for the election of female candidates and for representation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Party system issue agendas are formed by the topics that individual parties decide to address, and these salience decisions are likely to be strategic. Two key strategies are commonly discussed in the literature: parties’ focus on (1) issues that they have ownership over and (2) issues that currently concern voters. Yet it is not known what explains the extent to which parties pursue each of these strategies. This paper argues that aspects of party organisation influence which salience strategy is pursued. Parties that have more resources will be able to ‘ride the wave’ of current concerns while parties with fewer resources are more likely to focus on their best issues. Furthermore, policy-seeking parties with strong activist influence will be less likely to ‘ride the wave’ and more likely to follow issue ownership strategies. An analysis of 105 election manifestos from 27 elections in 17 countries shows that aspects of party organisation are indeed strong and robust moderators of issue ownership strategies. Limited, albeit mixed, evidence is also found that party organisation affects the use of ‘riding the wave’ strategies. These results have important implications for our understanding of electoral campaigns, party competition and voter representation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A candidate's gender affects vote choice, but the manner in which candidates can influence the effects of their gender is not well understood. I address candidates’ strategies based on gender stereotypes, that is, how voters are influenced by rhetoric that is either consistent (gender-reinforcing) or inconsistent (gender-bending) with gender stereotypes. These strategic choices are particularly important because of women's underrepresentation in American politics. Employing an experimental design, I found that male and female candidates who used gender-bending rhetoric were able to overturn stereotypes by persuading and priming voters. Male candidates were particularly successful. This was contrary to prior findings that consistency—at least in terms of party—is a superior strategy. These results have important implications for understanding how gender stereotypes evolve throughout a campaign to influence voters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What accounts for the difference between peaceful and violent elections in semi-authoritarian countries? This article analyses the influence of electoral management bodies (EMBs) on the likelihood of widespread violence triggered by opposition protest during election times. It is argued that by establishing inclusive and collaborative relationships through which political actors can jointly negotiate important electoral issues, EMBs influence the incentive structure of the major stakeholders in favour of non-violent strategies. The relationship is explored by comparing elections in Malawi (2004), Ethiopia (2005) and Zanzibar (2005). The analysis supports the idea that inclusive EMBs, rather than legal independence, are critical to guarantee the influence of the opposition in order to address both their interests and their mistrust of electoral politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This case study examines the Obama presidential campaign's use of the participatory Internet to manage its grassroots campaign. Grounded in relationship-management theory and dialogic principles in online relationship building, the study analyzed interviews with campaign staff, its Web site, and its news articles. Five themes emerged regarding the campaign's integration of the Internet and grassroots strategy; 6 themes surfaced regarding the campaign's Internet use to manage relationships. Recommendations are made for exploring relationship management theory's intersection with the Internet and political campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the sociological model of professionalism apply to the occupation of political campaign consulting? Using survey data from consultants involved in U.S. Congressional campaigns as well as in-person interviews, this article describes how consultants see their role in shaping campaigns and appraises their degree of consensus regarding appropriate campaign strategy and occupational behavior. Although consultants face some structural barriers to professionalization, the results suggest that they have the key components for a successful professional project: occupational institutions, a base of applied knowledge, and a service ethic. This consultant professionalization has important implications for the structure and content of modern campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of political marketing are difficult to measure. This article contends that "multi-dimensional case analysis"-i.e., the comparison of similar elections across demographic levels and across time-can reliably assess the impact of political marketing on campaign outcomes. A multi-dimensional examination of Congressman Harold Ford Jr.'s sophomore surge demonstrates the potential impact of candidate positioning. Specifically, the congressman' s shift to the center of his Memphis, Tennessee, constituency significantly enhanced his electoral performance. This substantive finding carries a methodological lesson: the evaluation of marketing effects is greatly improved through the use of a tightly structured research design that employs, not large-scale statistical analysis or controlled field experimentation, but in-depth, case-by-case investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an interview with Petr Zolotarev, president of the Edinstvo Union at Avtovaz, the Volga Automobile Factory in Togliatti, Russia. Zolotarev comments on the 2004 mayoral election and his candidacy. He details the social aspects of his political campaign. Zolotarev believes mafia interests and corrupt politics were involved in the election.

Considering cross-cultural aspects of political communication, this study explores how political advertising plays a conspicuous role as an indicator of cultural orientations by comparing and contrasting videostyles of the televised political spots between the United States and Korea since the presidential election campaigns held in 1992. A content analysis of verbal, nonverbal and production components of the videostyles shows that televised political spots were highly reflective of the respective cultural values with regard to high/low-context communication, degree of uncertainty avoidance, nonverbal expressions, and the social aspect of Che-Myon. Thus, indigenous cultural values tend to be reproduced in idealized form through political advertising so that people of each country can identify closely with the political candidate of the spots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the political preferences in Ontario, Canada, voter dealignment or campaign effects in particular. Its field of exit polls is also mentioned. In relation, it provides data that allowed the test assumptions about provincial voting behavior, which results suggest that provincial campaigns hold greater sway over voters than do federal campaigns. The information also explains why Ontarians backed a different party in 2003.

This study examines how two major presidential contenders strategically developed their presidential images. The candidates' strategies are examined through the lens of a presidential candidate image prototype. Specifically, this study investigates whether, and how, gender shapes these strategies. Although both candidates emphasized images of competence, integrity, reliability, and charisma, and both presented themes of policy issues and experience, their presidential images nonetheless were clearly different. The influences of gender, situation, and position within the race are examined as distinctively influential factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on a study which addressed how the Afro-Americans were treated during the 2000 presidential election in the United States. Political records of Afro-Americans in the country; Overview of the practice of Black politics; Significance of the election to the Afro-American community.

Explores the treatment to the Afro-American population in the United States during the presidential election on November 7, 2000. Description of Black politics in the post Black power era; How the abandonment of the radical political humanism was highlighted during the election; Factors contributed to the substantive context for the growth of contemporary black business, political, cultural and intellectual elites.

The article examines the social influence of human relationships and interpersonal communications in political science, focusing primarily on political campaigns. Topics covered include the portrayal of politics in mass media as well as the influence of political information, communication between opinion leaders, and how interpersonal communication impacts the opinion exchange process.

Examines the repeatable form of criminal archetypes in the United States during elections, which is believed to be the result of racism. Details on how the Afro-American population was neglected during the 2000 presidential election and how vote stealing has occurred; Overview of the myth of democracy.