Focus: Dirty Politics
... Saudi royals (it is customary for Arab men to walk hand in hand). The add ends by saying “Are Bush and Saudis too close for comfort?” The Republican party created an add against John Kerry, questioning his ability to fight the war on terrorism, flashing images of the World Trade Center in ruins fallowed by pictures of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and finally John Kerry. (http://www.cbsnews.com) The real question for the political parties is: Does negative advertisement really work? "Negative advertising works because people remember them more quickly, recall them more readily,"(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/27/politics/main645881.shtml) because political advertising must get results in a short period of time, political practitioners use several kinds of political advertising: image, issue and negative advertising. When creating a negative adds, parties must be sure to take in emotional factors and recognize what crowd they are trying to attract. Adds about George. W. bush throwing out ballots of African Americans in the election of 2000 persuaded black voters to vote for Al Gore. “In a 1985 experimental study, Garramone assumed that a boomerang effect of negative advertising resulted from two reasons: First, many viewers disapprove of advertising that attacks a candidate and such viewers may develop negative feelings toward the sponsor of the advertising. Second, viewers may perceive the negative advertising as an infringement upon their right to decide for themselves. Such a perception may result in reactance, a boomerang effect in which the individual reacts in a manner opposite to the persuader's intention.” As we watched the polls in the election of 2004, there was a slight rise in votes for the Senator who had the stronger add. But truly in the end poll results for 2004 were almost surprisingly almost even among the masses. Does this mean that both parties had equa...