The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning

Turn on the television or sign in to social media during election season and chances are you’ll see plenty of negative campaigning. For decades, conventional wisdom has held that Americans hate negativity in political advertising, and some have even argued that its pervasiveness in recent seasons has helped to drive down voter turnout. Arguing against this commonly held view, Kyle Mattes and David P. Redlawsk show not only that some negativity is accepted by voters as part of the political process, but that negative advertising is necessary to convey valuable information that would not otherwise be revealed. The most comprehensive treatment of negative campaigning to date, The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning uses models, surveys, and experiments to show that much of the seeming dislike of negative campaigning can be explained by the way survey questions have been worded. By failing to distinguish between baseless and credible attacks, surveys fail to capture differences in voters’ receptivity. Voters’ responses, the authors argue, vary greatly and can be better explained by the content and believability of the ads than by whether the ads are negative. Mattes and Redlawsk continue on to establish how voters make use of negative information and why it is necessary. Many voters are politically naïve and unlikely to make inferences about candidates’ positions or traits, so the ability of candidates to go on the attack and focus explicitly on information that would not otherwise be available is crucial to voter education.

Reference

Redlawsk, David P.

Mattes, Kyle

Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

University of Chicago Press

Turn on the television or sign in to social media during election season and chances are you’ll see plenty of negative campaigning. For decades, conventional wisdom has held that Americans hate negativity in political advertising, and some have even argued that its pervasiveness in recent seasons has helped to drive down voter turnout. Arguing against this commonly held view, Kyle Mattes and David P. Redlawsk show not only that some negativity is accepted by voters as part of the political process, but that negative advertising is necessary to convey valuable information that would not otherwise be revealed. The most comprehensive treatment of negative campaigning to date, The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning uses models, surveys, and experiments to show that much of the seeming dislike of negative campaigning can be explained by the way survey questions have been worded. By failing to distinguish between baseless and credible attacks, surveys fail to capture differences in voters’ receptivity. Voters’ responses, the authors argue, vary greatly and can be better explained by the content and believability of the ads than by whether the ads are negative. Mattes and Redlawsk continue on to establish how voters make use of negative information and why it is necessary. Many voters are politically naïve and unlikely to make inferences about candidates’ positions or traits, so the ability of candidates to go on the attack and focus explicitly on information that would not otherwise be available is crucial to voter education.

If Barack Obama had not won in Iowa, most commentators believe that he would not have been able to go on to capture the Democratic nomination for president. Why Iowa? offers the definitive account of those early weeks of the campaign season: from how the Iowa caucuses work and what motivates the candidates’ campaigns, to participation and turnout, as well as the lingering effects that the campaigning had on Iowa voters. Demonstrating how “what happens in Iowa” truly reverberates throughout the country, five-time Iowa precinct caucus chair David P. Redlawsk and his coauthors take us on an inside tour of one of the most media-saturated and speculated-about campaign events in American politics. Considering whether a sequential primary system, in which early, smaller states such as Iowa and New Hampshire have such a tremendous impact is fair or beneficial to the country as a whole, the authors here demonstrate that not only is the impact warranted, but it also reveals a great deal about informational elements of the campaigns. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this sequential system does confer huge benefits on the nominating process while Iowa’s particularly well-designed caucus system—extensively explored here for the first time—brings candidates’ arguments, strengths, and weaknesses into the open and under the media’s lens.

Why Iowa?: How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process

History

Tolbert, Caroline J.

Donovan, Todd

Americas

If Barack Obama had not won in Iowa, most commentators believe that he would not have been able to go on to capture the Democratic nomination for president. Why Iowa? offers the definitive account of those early weeks of the campaign season: from how the Iowa caucuses work and what motivates the candidates’ campaigns, to participation and turnout, as well as the lingering effects that the campaigning had on Iowa voters. Demonstrating how “what happens in Iowa” truly reverberates throughout the country, five-time Iowa precinct caucus chair David P. Redlawsk and his coauthors take us on an inside tour of one of the most media-saturated and speculated-about campaign events in American politics. Considering whether a sequential primary system, in which early, smaller states such as Iowa and New Hampshire have such a tremendous impact is fair or beneficial to the country as a whole, the authors here demonstrate that not only is the impact warranted, but it also reveals a great deal about informational elements of the campaigns. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this sequential system does confer huge benefits on the nominating process while Iowa’s particularly well-designed caucus system—extensively explored here for the first time—brings candidates’ arguments, strengths, and weaknesses into the open and under the media’s lens.

Civic Service Filled with illustrative examples of effective service-learning lessons from across a variety of disciplines, Civic Service shows faculty and administrators of institutions of higher education what it takes to collaborate effectively with government partners such as city councils, school districts, and public agencies. Written to be flexible, the examples can also be applied to service-learning courses working with businesses and nonprofit organizations. This important resource can give faculty and administrators the inspiration and guidance they need to take the lead in creating their own service-learning programs. "Service-learning with state and local government partners can have a crucial impact on our country's future. If we are to successfully navigate the unscripted future we all face, we must raise the bar in confronting the multiple challenges in our society. Just as the problems facing us are real, so are the opportunities for vision, for renewal, and fortapping into fresh, creative approaches to addressing these problems." —From the foreword by Kay W. Barnes, Distinguished Professor of Public Leadership, Park University, and former mayor, Kansas City, Missouri "This is an important book. At a time when we have come to a fresh appreciation of the critical importance of government in fostering and sustaining the common good, Redlawsk and Rice provide us with case studies that illustrate how service-learning can contribute to this work. Their book not only contains a variety of different disciplinary and partnering models, it also includes the voices of key stakeholders—including government officials—not always heard in service-learning circles. This volume should be in the library of every service-learning program. It helps us reconceptualize how service-learning can and should contribute to civic renewal." —John Saltmarsh, professor of higher education administration and director, New England Resource Center for Higher Education, University of Massachusetts, Boston, and Edward Zlotkowski, professor of English, Bentley University

Civic Service: Service-Learning with State and Local Government Partners

Education & Teaching

Rice, Tom

Higher & Continuing Education

Jossey-Bass

How Voters Decide: Information Processing in Election Campaigns (Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Political Psychology)

This book attempts to redirect the field of voting behavior research by proposing a paradigm-shifting framework for studying voter decision making. An innovative experimental methodology is presented for getting 'inside the heads' of citizens as they confront the overwhelming rush of information from modern presidential election campaigns. Four broad theoretically-defined types of decision strategies that voters employ to help decide which candidate to support are described and operationally-defined. Individual and campaign-related factors that lead voters to adopt one or another of these strategies are examined. Most importantly, this research proposes a new normative focus for the scientific study of voting behavior: we should care about not just which candidate received the most votes, but also how many citizens voted correctly - that is, in accordance with their own fully-informed preferences.

Politics & Social Sciences

Lau, Richard R.

Politics & Government

Cambridge University Press

This book attempts to redirect the field of voting behavior research by proposing a paradigm-shifting framework for studying voter decision making. An innovative experimental methodology is presented for getting 'inside the heads' of citizens as they confront the overwhelming rush of information from modern presidential election campaigns. Four broad theoretically-defined types of decision strategies that voters employ to help decide which candidate to support are described and operationally-defined. Individual and campaign-related factors that lead voters to adopt one or another of these strategies are examined. Most importantly, this research proposes a new normative focus for the scientific study of voting behavior: we should care about not just which candidate received the most votes, but also how many citizens voted correctly - that is, in accordance with their own fully-informed preferences.

In the run-up to a contentious 2020 presidential election, the much-maligned American voter may indeed be wondering, "How did we get here?" A Citizen's Guide to the Political Psychology of Votingoffers a way of thinking about how voters make decisions that provides both hope and concern. In many ways, voters may be able to effectively process vast amounts of information in order to decide which candidates to vote for in concert with their ideas, values, and priorities. But human limitations in information processing must give us pause. While we all might think we want to be rational information processors, political psychologists recognize that most of the time we do not have the time or the motivation to do so. The question is, can voters do a "good enough" job even if they fail to account for everything during the campaign? Evidence suggests that they can, but it isn't easy. Here, Redlawsk and Habegger portray a wide variety of voter styles and approaches--from the most motivated and engaged to the farthest removed and disenchanted--in vignettes that connect the long tradition of voter survey research to real life voting challenges. They explore how voters search for political information and make use of it in evaluating candidates and their positions. Ultimately, they find that American voters are reasonably competent in making well-enough informed vote choices efficiently and responsibly. For citizen voters as well as students and scholars, these results should encourage regular turnout for elections now and in the future.

A Citizen’s Guide to the Political Psychology of Voting (Citizen Guides to Politics and Public Affairs)

Routledge

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Redlawsk, David P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Redlawsk, David P.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Redlawsk, David P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning

The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning

Why Iowa?: How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process

Why Iowa?: How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process

Civic Service: Service-Learning with State and Local Government Partners

How Voters Decide: Information Processing in Election Campaigns (Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Political Psychology)

How Voters Decide: Information Processing in Election Campaigns (Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Political Psychology)

A Citizen’s Guide to the Political Psychology of Voting (Citizen Guides to Politics and Public Affairs)