Communication Studies Resources The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of Communication Studies Online Communication Studies Resources

Political Advertising

2007 News Articles & Blogs on political advertising
 
2004 News Articles on political advertising
:30 Second Candidate, The
A PBS documentary supplement that features an historical timeline of U.S. political advertising on TV, a unit on the creation process "From Idea to Ad," and "Tricks of the Trade" on how particular meanings and moods are manipulated. You can also find transcripts of the program.
AdAge: A Look at the Latest TV Political Ads
WindowsMediaBlistering Critiques of Presidential Wannabies' Marketing Efforts by Bob Garfield, 9/8/03 - includes Windows Media Player examples by Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt and John Kerry.
Ad Critical Political Site
download quicktimeA small, hopfully growing collection of political TV ads. A special section of the larger Ad Critic site devoted to QuickTime versions of recent TV commercials. More political TV commercials available at "Freedom Channel
Advocacy versus Attack: The Impact of Political Advertising in the 2001 UK General Election (pdf)
Co-authored by David Sanders, Essex University and Pippa Norris, JFKennedy School, Harvard. "This paper seeks to expand what we know about the effects of political advertising to the context of party election broadcasts (PEBs). In particular, we analyze how far the PEBs of the three major national parties altered voters’ preferences during the 2001 UK general election campaign."
Ad Wars
PBS' NewsHour September 21, 2000 program transcript (and streaming audio and video). "Spending on political television ads continues to increase as candidates heat up their battle over the airwaves. After a background report, three experts examine their ads and what impact their message is having on voters." See also the October 30, 2000 report about the campaign's final week. Many more still available on the PBS site. Go to http://www.google.com and perform this search: "political ads" site:pbs.org
Ad Watch - Los Angeles Times
Fact checking and analysis of national and local political ads.
Ad Watch - Best Practices in Journalism
"Many of these ad watches follow a widely recommended strategy for critical assessment of campaign advertising: presenting evidence of how accurately the claims made in an ad match the truth. Important elements also include playing the ad within a frame and labeling it so your viewers understand that it is the subject of a news piece, and freezing the ad at appropriate times for data/voice-over commentary."
The Air War
QuicktimeWashington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz evaluates the accuracy of political advertising in this occasional Washington Post series. When available, ads will also be presented in RealVideo.
AllPolitics - Ad Archive
From CNN/Time -- a collection of political ads in QuickTime video from the 1952 Eisenhower/Stevenson race to the 1984 Reagan "Morning Again in America" ad. See Also: 1996 Clinton v Bush ads
Alliance for Better Campaigns/The Campaign Legal Center
The Alliance for Better Campaigns is a public interest group founded in 1998 that seeks to improve elections by promoting campaigns in which the most useful information reaches the greatest number of citizens in the most engaging way."
Annenberg Public Policy Center (U. Penn) - Political Discourse: Issue Advertising
Several papers available in .pdf format (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader) by Kathleen Hall Jamieson and others: Articles include: "Stand By Your Ad: A Conference on Issue Advocacy Advertising" "Free Air Time and Campaign Reform " - "Issue Advocacy Advertising During the 1996 Campaign: A Catalog " = "Free Air Time and Campaign Reform "
Campaign Ads - C-SPAN
An archive of campaign ads of all major presidential candidates in the 2004 race as well as ads by MoveOn.org and Club for Growth. RealPlayer needed.
Campaign advertising
Wikipedia page with links to Attack ad, Bumper sticker, Campaign button, Canvassing, Direct marketing, Election promise, Get out the vote, Lawn sign, Negative campaigning, Opposition research, PIG, Push poll
Campaign 2000: In Their Own Words
RealPlayerSourcebook for the 2000 Presidential Election - a collection of speeches and ads from the Presidential campaign on CD. Streaming video available online for all major candidates. From the Stanford University Political Communication Lab.
Campaign 2000: National Party Issue Ads
George Washington University present stills & transcripts, compiled by Eric. M. Appleman
Campaign 2002: California Governor
RealPlayerFrom Stanford University's Political Communication Lab, this archive offers video and audio of ads, interviews and other content from the (pre recall) race between Richard Riordan and Gray Davis
Campaign 2003: California Special Election
RealPlayerStanford's Political Communication Lab offers multimedia coverage of the attempted recall of Governor Gray Davis and various candidates running for the seat should the recall succeed.
Campaign 2004: Democratic Primary Campaign Ads
Get Flash ReaderThis Macromedia Flash presentation covers the credentials and policy positions of all nine candidates contesting the Democratic nomination with comparable information about the Republican nominee, President George W. Bush. Includes campaign ads for all, including early drop outs Moseley Braun and Richard Gephardt.
Campaign Advertising E-Archives
A page of resources Professor G.W. Richardson of Kurtztown University of Pennsylvania organized for his classes.
Candidate Ads: 1988 George Bush "Revolving Door" - a tutorial
Darrell West created this tutorial for his Political Science 111 "Mass Media" at Brown U. See also: Issue Ads Tutorial and Independent Ads Tutorial
Candidates Slow to Bring Political Advertising Dollars to the Web 
"The 2004 election campaigns are using the Internet more than ever for organizing, fund-raising and communicating with supporters -- but they haven't put big resources into online advertising. What will it take to get them to give up their TV mindset?" Article in the USC Annenberg Onlinge Journalism Review.
The Caucus: Political Blogging From The New York Times
The Political Advertising tag. Ongoing commentary by the Times politics staff.
Channeling influence: The Broadcast Lobby and the $70 Billion Free Ride
The critical role of television in political campaigns. How broadcasters are profiting from campaign ads. From Common Cause.
C-SPAN 2004 Campaign Ads Archive
Video archive of ads for all 2004 presidental candidates as well as Clob for Growth Anti-Dean ad & anti-Bush ads by MoveOn.org
Dissect an Ad
Quicktime"An exercise developed by the Center for Media Literacy, to get you the voter (or voter-to-be) thinking critically about 1996 Presidential election campaign ads." From the PBS POV series.
Debate Room - Political Television Advertisments
Putting aside all of the objections -- that television is shallow, that it can manipulate -- no one can deny the power of televised advertising to bring new political ideas to people who have not previously experienced them. Half of these contributions went to the parties designated, and the other half were used to finance the expensive process of new elections.
Effectiveness of Negative Political Advertising
by Won Ho Chang, Jae-Jin Park, and Sung Wook Shim [WJMCR 2:1 December 1998] "The present study investigated the effectiveness of negative political advertising in terms of informativeness, believability and attitudes toward both the sponsor and the target. "
FactCheck.org
Holding Politicians Accountable - a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Cener of the University of Pennsylvania.
Fifty Years of Political Ads (2000)
Article by journalism graduate student Laurence Pantin on medialchannel.org that briefly sketches TV political ad history from 1952 to 2000.
Freedom Channel
QuicktimeA non-partisan site that features political video on demand. QuickTime versions of commercial candidate and issue ads, Freedom Channel recorded videos of candidates stating their positions, etc.
Going Negative
Winning, but losing: How negative campaigns shrink electorate, manipulate news media by Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar. An excerpt from a longer article published in an 1996 issue of Quill Magazine.
I'm blahblahblah and I've approved this message (aka "Stand by your ad")
A short explanation of why we hear this at the end of every campaign ad now, and a link to the law that requires it. A more complete explanation "Are Candidates Swearing Off 'Attack Ads?' Maybe This Reform is Working" by Brooks Jackson can be found on the Annenberg FactCheck.org site.
Independent Ads: The National Security Political Action Committee "Willie Horton" - a tutorial
Darrell West created this tutorial for his Political Science 111 "Mass Media" at Brown U. See also: Issue Ads Tutorial and Issue Ads Tutorial
IssueAds@APPC
An online tracking study of issue advocacy advertising - part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Also check this page http://www.appcpenn.org/political/issueads/
Issue Ads: 1992 Christian Action Network "Clinton's Vision for a Better America" - a tutorial
Darrell West created this tutorial for his Political Science 111 "Mass Media" at Brown U. See also: Independent Ads Tutorial and Candidate Ads Tutorial
Issue Advocacy Advertising through the Presidential Primary 1999-2000 Election Cycle
"by Erika Falk, Researcher, Annenberg Public Policy Center. this report details issue advocacy advertising through the period of the of the 1999-2000 cycle." http://www.appcpenn.org/issueads/
Issue Advocacy Advertising During the 1997-1998 Election Cycle
by Jeffrey D. Stanger and Douglas G. Rivlin, Annenberg Public Policy Center, Washington. The Center released this analysis of 423 issue ads aired during 1997 and 1998 on December 1, 1998.
Issue Advocacy Advertising During the 1996 Campaign: A Catalog (pdf)
"by Deborah Beck, Paul Taylor, Jeffrey Stanger and Douglas Rivlin
This report details $135 to $150 million of issue advocacy advertising aired during the 1996 election cycle."  Annenberg Public Policy Center
Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive
Not an Internet resource - you must travel to the University of Oklahoma to gain access to their holdings -- approximately 70,000 political commercials dating back to 1936. See also: Low Blows and High Rhetoric: Political Ads on Television
Maggie Riechers wrote this article in Humanities (NEH) 20:4 1999 about The Political Commercial Archive.
Legislative Issue Advertising in the 107th Congress (pdf)
A report from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "… an online study of print and television issue-advocacy advertising inside the Capital Beltway. On this site you can find reports on issue advertising, and profiles of groups that aired issue ads in 2001-2002."
The Living Room Candidate
A History of Presidential campaign commercials, 1952-2000 presented by the American Museum of the Moving Image in cooperation with the Political communication Center, University of Oklahoma. Works with either RealPlayer or Windows Media Player.
Media Analysis & Ad Watch - Online NewsHour Vote 2004
Campaign Ad Watch from FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania/
Mixed Messages: Tracking Political Advertising
This project of the Washington Post is a searchable database of political ads. Just under 200 ads catalogued and presented as video or audio. Searchable by candidate or organization, year, state, type of race, issues and ad content like tone, attack, factual, record, etc.
MoveOn Advertisements
2005 TV Ads, 2004 TV Ads, 2004 Print Ads, and more
Newsroom Guide to Political Advertising (pdf)
A 1999 publication of the Political Coverage Project, The Radio and Television News Directors Foundation. Introduction by Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Political Action on the Web Offers a Boost to Presidential Campaigns
Comparing TV and radio commercials to a candidate's Web site is like comparing a pamphlet to an encyclopedia," says Mike Low, who ran the Web site for the Steve Forbes campaign. Despite it's flashy graphics, the Web still can't give voters the same front-line feel for a candidate as TV can.
Political Advertising Handbook for the Television Sales Executive
John Wells King, Erwin G. Krasnow & Garvery Shubert Barer (2006). Provides information regarding every stage of the political advertising sales process.
Political Advertising - Minnesota Public Radio
QuicktimeAds from the past: View early TV commercials Ads from today: (QuickTime) View Boschwitz and Wellstone advertising. Commentary by Dr. Dean Alger.
Political Advertising Regulation: An Unconstitutional Menace?
by Stephen Bates Stephen Bates - a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School and a project director for the Twentieth Century Fund. He is coauthor with Edwin Diamond of The Spot: The Rise of Political Advertising on Television, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988).
Political Advertising Resource Center
The Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership, University of Maryland "PARC is a nonpartisan informational Web site that analyzes the television advertisements used in local, state, and national political campaigns. Both candidate-based and issue ads are analyzed."
Political Advertising: What Effect on Commercial Advertisers?
Shanto Iyengar and Markus Prior Department of Communication, Stanford University June, 1999
Political Advertising: What You Need To Know
A guide to Texas election law in regard to political advertising.
Political Campaigns
An excellent resource from the Stanford University Political Communication Lab features video of Campaign 2008 ads and selections from 1994-2006. A special section on Negative Advertising includes a book excerpt from Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate.
Political Communication Center
QuicktimeUniversity of Oklahoma Department of Communication. See especially "Political Advertising Research Reports" and a 20 minute QuickTime video: "The Uses and Abuses of Technology in Political Advertising."
Political Media Buying
The buying of electronic media is based on gross rating points and the cost paid to buy a rating point. Advertising can be aired continuously at a single level of gross rating points throughout the election. Tobe Berkovitz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the College of Communication, Boston University where he teaches courses in advertising and political campaigning. He has wo rked for twenty years as a political media consultant specializing in media buying.
Political Newspaper Advertising
The Newspaper Association of America produced this site as a means of promoting newspapers as an ad medium. It includes a Flash presentation "50 of the Best Political Newspaper Ads"
Political Spot Advertising
Selected bibliography by Allan Louden, Wake Forest University
Presidential Campaign Slogans
From William Henry Harrison's 1840 "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" to 2000 candidate slogans.
Presidential Campaign Songs: 1789 - 1996
A music CD by Oscar Brand on Smithsonian Folkways.
Presidential Issue Ads - 2000
George Washington University's Democracy in Action project presents small stills and transcriptions of voiceover of ads by both the DNC and RNC. Caution: reducing visual messages of TV ads to 4 stills misses much of the content and impact of an ad.
RaceProject.org
"There are four primary compnents to the Project: Historical analysis: How have racial messages been used in political campaigns since television advertisements began in 1952? … Measuring potential effects of campaign ads.… Personal Interviews [with] political consultants and candidates who have been involved … in contests in which at least one candidate was (or is) a racial minority … [and] analysis of contemporary issues.…"
Radio & Political Advertising: A Handbook for the Account Executive
This 57-page "handbook will help you at every stage of the political advertising sales proces. Read it to gain a working overview of the essential concepts of political advertising."
Roundtable on Political Advertising (requires U. Iowa ID)
Issue 1:2 of Advertising & Society Review. Rountable members: Jerry Della Femina, Donny Deutsch, Stuart Ewen, Montague Kern, Burt Manning, David Paletz, Randall Rothenberg, Fath Davis Ruffins, James Twichell.
Special Interest Political Ads
From the January 12, 2000 edition of PBS' NewsHour. "Media correspondent Terence Smith reviews political ads produced by advocacy groups and hosts a discussion with journalists and media critics." Transcript and audio track.
Stand By Your Ad: A Conference on Issue Advocacy Advertising (PDF)
A Report of the Conference held by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania and The Free TV for Straight Talk Coalition at the National Press Club, Washington, DC and funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. 16 September 1997 - This conference, hosted by the Annenberg Public Policy center, explored issues of accountability and disclosure in political advertising on television.
The 30 second Candidate
Web extension of a PBS program on the 1996 US presidential campaign. Visitors can go through a step by step ad creation exercise, explore various videomaking techniques to make the audio and visual arguments, transcripts of interviews with experts used in the TV program.
Tired of Negative Political Campaigns?
From the League of Women Voters a short guide for analyzing ads.
Winning, but Losing
An excerpt from Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate by Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar (Stanford U.) was originally published in the May 1996 edition of Quill Magazine.
Why we should get rid of political advertising
A veteran adman (Bob Welke) says that it's time for ads to go back to doing what they do best: Selling kitty litter.
When Is Entertainment Too Political?
"Published: October 27, 2006 WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- As the hubbub mounts over negative political ads, a new controversy is emerging over what should count as political advocacy on TV and what is entertainment. Just this week, a Democratic candidate for California governor challenged an appearance by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on "The Tonight Show" as being akin to a political ad, and broadcast networks rejected an ad for a documentary film featuring the Dixie Chicks for being too political. "

Political Media and Consulting Firms

Arno Political Consultants (APC)
Mostly conservative clientel - conducts ballot initiative and "grassroots" campaigns.
Charlton Research Company
The company specializes in analyzing changes in today's socio-political and economic environments.
Luc Media
Political Media buying Specialists
Multi Media Services Corporation
Political and corporate advertising agency
Phil Noble & Associates
General consulting, campaign seminars & training, Internet services.
Pollster.com
Summaries of many polls - compare polls from many polling companies - presidential approval, governor, senate & house races.
Strother/Duffy/Strother
One of America’s oldest and best established media and political consulting firms with experience in House, Senate, Gubernatorial and Presidential campaigns. We have been called one of the three firms in America that can truly make a difference in an election.
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