Brandon Krampert
\nIn Motion Staff Writer<\/p>\n
As Election Day approaches this year on Nov. 4, one ought to wonder how much of an impact political campaign advertisements make whenever one considers who or what to vote for.<\/p>\n
Political ads are arguably the most common source of engagement even for those not interested in politics. But is this kind of engagement dangerous at all?<\/p>\n
The Pew Research Center found in 2010 that broadcast news is still dominantly the leading source of news and that 78 percent of Americans tune into local television daily.<\/p>\n
Going back to the 2012 elections, campaign spending amounted to $10 billion (That accounts for national, state, local and referendum elections) while $6 billion of the spending was on campaign ads which are profits that television stations reap.<\/p>\n
Television stations have become a bit more transparent with the political ads they air. The Federal Communications Commission for a long time has required stations to submit a public inspection file that\u2019s viewable to anyone, which contains information on purchases of political ads, the amounts paid and who bought the space. The FCC has required the stations to switch over to online filing this year even though it\u2019s not in a very accessible format.<\/p>\n
Tracking the money associated with political ads can be understood but what about the validity of these ads?<\/p>\n
It can be quite difficult to gather bulks of data like this and analyze them in a short period of time so let\u2019s refer back to a study in the early 2000\u2019s by former Washington Post political reporter Paul Taylor that found roughly half of all ads to be unfair, misleading or deceptive.<\/p>\n
This figure may be increasing along with the increase of political ads in general. Another study by the media research group, Kantar Media, illustrates this quite well. In the study, they observed political ads that were related to the presidential elections in several major cities in one week of August in 2004, 2008 and 2012. Let\u2019s take one of their subjects, Orlando, Fla. for the sake of relevance. In 2004 there were 0 ads while in 2008 153 ads, and in 2012 a staggering 1,863 ads.<\/p>\n
What has also increased has been the trend of negative ads. The Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison concluded in a study that between 2000 and 2008 the overall percentage of negative ads had increased from 50 percent to 60 percent. Kantar Media had another study that looked at the 2012 presidential election and found that 84 percent of the political ads on television had been negative.<\/p>\n
Negative ads have been widely criticized because of the potential effect, causing people not to vote for the rival candidate even if it means that people don\u2019t vote at all.<\/p>\n
What are voters being exposed to the most, potentially misleading and negative content found in political ads or news programs with fair and critical reporting of elections?<\/p>\n
In 2012, there were many cases, especially in battleground states with the presidential election where television stations actually shaved off minutes of newscasts to allow for more room for political ads according to a report by Paul Garhi of the Washington Post.<\/p>\n
There are some television stations across the country that fact-check the political ads being aired on their stations. WTSP in Tampa collaborated with the Tampa Bay Times\u2019 Politi Fact to assess political ads for example.<\/p>\n
To be fair, there have been some innovations to combat the validity of political ads by broadcast news, but not nearly enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brandon Krampert In Motion Staff Writer As Election Day approaches this year on Nov. 4, one ought to wonder how much of an impact political campaign advertisements make whenever one considers who or what to vote for. Political ads are arguably the most common source of engagement even for those Continue reading Negative political ads infect TV<\/span>