A New Look at Campaign Advertising and Political Engagement

Author(s)
Jörg Matthes, Franziska Marquart
Abstract

Exposure to cross-cutting versus like-minded political advertising is highly relevant in terms of deliberative democratic theory. However, few efforts have been made to shed light on the effects of such opinion-incongruent and -congruent political advertisements. By analyzing data from a representative panel survey, and hence identifying effects over time, we found that exposure to opinion-congruent advertising enhanced political participation. Opinion-congruent advertising also accelerated the timing of voting decisions when citizens were low in ideological strength. However, contrary to our expectations, exposure to opinion-incongruent political advertising had no effects on political participation and the timing of voting decisions. These findings suggest that opinion-congruent advertising is a strong mobilizer, whereas opinion-hostile advertising is a weak cross-pressure. Implications of these findings for the study of political advertising effects are discussed.

Organisation(s)
Department of Communication
Journal
Communication Research (CR)
Volume
42
Pages
134-155
No. of pages
22
ISSN
0093-6502
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650213514600
Publication date
02-2015
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
508007 Communication science
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Communication, Language and Linguistics, Linguistics and Language
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/63de8d80-23a9-43fa-99f3-17592b956832