PERSUASION

COMPONENTS
IN POLITICAL
ADVERTISING
Because everyone could use
more politics right about now!
Problem Statement
There is a problem in how many resources political candidates pour into advertisements
for their campaigns. Despite political theory stating that these advertisements should be
doubtlessly beneficial to a candidate, all of these ads only influence their viewers on a
minuscule scale. Alexander Coppock’s recent study of ads from the 2016 presidential
election found that overall, voters described feeling little to no sway in their partisanship,
even after 59 different experiments, testing 34,000 people with 49 different
advertisements. This problem has negatively impacted candidates because the millions
of dollars they spend on advertising is, seemingly, going to waste. A possible cause of
this problem is voters’ predisposition to one political party or another. Perhaps a study
which investigates voters swayed by transcripts in the styles of political advertisements,
with biases removed, could help explore which types of ads really work better than
others when party and policy biases are removed.

Research Question
How efficient is each typical structure of
modern American political advertisement in
influencing a presidential candidate's
promise among new and prospective voters
(aged 16-18) in the Denver area?
 Definitions
Attack Advertisement - An
advertisement actively
denouncing an opposing
candidate based on negative
Assumptions / Hypothesis information about them
Voter Turnout - The
Assumptions: Questionnaire participants will have
seen political advertisements before, witnessed an numerical portion of
American presidential election in action, and can Americans that cast their
recognize the format of a political advertisement. ballots in a given election
Cognitive Dissonance - The
Hypothesis: Attack advertisements will prove to be
reluctance of the mind to
among the most persuasive forms of advertisement
because negative arguments are generally more admit mistakes or accept
impactful on the human psyche. scientific findings

Proposed Method of Inquiry

I will compose several transcripts in different styles of
political advertisements with no mention of any existing
party or policy, in order to remove bias, and provide these
transcripts to participants along with a questionnaire. The
questionnaire will simply ask each participant to rank their
feelings on the promise of each candidate featured in the
advertisement in order to assess the advertisement's
influence on the participant.

Significance
Simply put, this research might aid political
candidates in choosing which ad formats to
display most prominently in their campaigns.
 Possible Sources
Coppock, A., Hill, S. J., & Vavreck, L. (2020). The small effects of political advertising
are small regardless of context, message, sender, or receiver: Evidence from 59
real-time randomized experiments. Science Advances, 6(36), 1–6. https://doi-
org.jeffcolibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc4046

Vafeiadis, M., Li, R., & Shen, F. (2018). Narratives in Political Advertising: An Analysis
of the Political Advertisements in the 2014 Midterm Elections. Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 62(2), 354–370. https://doi-
org.jeffcolibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/08838151.2018.1451858

Lipsitz, K. (2018). Playing with Emotions: The Effect of Moral Appeals in Elite
Rhetoric. Political Behavior, 40(1), 57–78. https://doi-
org.jeffcolibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s11109-017-9394-8

Begala, P. (2012). More Attack Ads, Please. Newsweek, 159(13/14), 15–16.

Christ, W. G., & Thorson, E. (1994). Do attitudes toward political advertising affect
information processing of televised political.. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic
Media, 38(3), 251. https://doi-
org.jeffcolibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/08838159409364264

Tavris, E. (2020). The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic. Retrieved

November 02, 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/role-
cognitive-dissonance-pandemic/614074/?fbclid=IwAR1MYZeg2ujJPonk7czJ0Sm6--
AmMNGFKsB3J1EJnWVeIgCcmmv2vN_y4wA

Partners / Resources
Columbine's own Mr. Martin has aided immensely in
identifying and defining the psychological elements
inherent within political advertising and the public's
responses to it. I have also contacted a professor of political
science at CU Boulder who has offered to answer any
minor questions along the path of this project.