GOING NEGATIVE: How Political Ads Shrink and Polarize the Electorate [Hardcover]

Stephen Ansolabehere (Author), Shanto Iyengar (Draft Writer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1996

This study demonstrates how attack advertisements win elections. Political adverts cost millions and they now increasingly focus on the opponents weaknesses through nasty and personal attacks. Drawing on both laboratory experiments and the real world of America's presidential, and congressional races, the author shows that negative advertising drives down voter turnout, and the political consultants intentionally use adverts for this purpose. Among the authors conclusions are that negative adverts work better for Republicans than for Democrats, and better for men than for women. Negative adverts also work better than positive ones, so attacking has become nearly universal. The authors also argue that as independent voters are driven away by all this negativity, the voting public is increasingly reduced to partisan extremes.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

As they enter an election year, most voters are bracing themselves for yet another round of harsh, negative campaign ads. And although the average citizen decries the use of such ads, political consultants consistently employ them. In this book by two political scientists, we learn why and how negative ads are effective. Using four years of controlled experiments in which real voters viewed professionally designed campaign commercials?both positive and negative?the authors detected a number of important results. Campaign advertising, they conclude, is persuasive but not manipulative; voters do learn from ads, regardless of their length, because they simplify the task of voting. Exposure to advertising also reinforces potential partisan sentiments. The most disturbing findings, however, are that negative ads suppress voter turnout by discouraging nonpartisan or independent voters and that such ads increase voters' cynicism about elections and their own ability to affect the political system. Despite the sophisticated methodology, the authors' writing is accessible to the informed reader. Their book is essential for any serious student of American elections and is likely to be the focus of much discussion during the coming election.?Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes Univ., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684822849
• ISBN-13: 978-0684822846
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,048,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for a research paper, April 5, 2000

By 

Jay Rickabaugh (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: GOING NEGATIVE: How Political Ads Shrink and Polarize the Electorate (Hardcover)

Don't get me wrong, this book isn't going to have you captivated from cover to cover, but if you're looking for a good book to do a research project on in elections and voting behavior--this certainly is one of the most exciting choices around.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Going negative: a positive read, March 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: GOING NEGATIVE: How Political Ads Shrink and Polarize the Electorate (Hardcover)

Going negative investigates the influence of negative political advertising on American voters. The book breaks old beliefs and describes a disturbing picture of what the future holds if negative ads do not change. Ground breaking and very interesting.

3.0 out of 5 stars Going To Sleep, August 13, 2004

By 

John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: GOING NEGATIVE: How Political Ads Shrink and Polarize the Electorate (Hardcover)

A few things jumped out at me when I first sat down to write this review. The first was that in reading the introduction and then as the book goes along, the reader starts to wonder if maybe there is not some underlying bias in the research. The authors are based in California, used a majority of California political contests and used as their control and test groups Californians. Not that there is anything wrong with the great state of California, it's just that it is known as a very liberal state and this book is supposed to be fair study of negative campaign adds and the effect on Joe average. I keep wondering why they did not focus on races in the mid west where the states swing from one side of the spectrum to the other depending on the year. If this was not enough of a concern about bias then the comments about how the GOP tends to be better at the attack add and they use it more often is another comment that looks bias. Even if it is true, and given I am a lefty I think it is, it does tend to look a little bias.

The next issue I had with the book was the fact that it is one of the dullest and driest book I think I have ever come across. These two guys are not authors, why the publisher did not get a ghost writer in there to pep up the text is beyond me. Ok I know that it is an "important study" type book, but man alive if it was not hard to read. Even when they were describing read meat attack adds they somehow found ways to dull it down to a written equitant to watching dust gather on a table. Page after page I was torn between wanting to keep going and wanting to break down in tears due to the pain of continuing. It is a statement to how interesting the overall topic is that I got through the book at all. Running a marathon, climbing Everest and reading this book are all about equitant in pain and effort.

That leads me to the last thing I want to say and that is that many parts of the book were interesting. Outside of the rather basic views on Democratic or Republican strong points, the authors were able to provide some interesting views on who is effected by negative adds. I had always thought the effect was to change people from one candidate to another, but the authors detail out evidence that all the negative adds do is reinforce the opinions of the partisan and turn off the middle of the road folks. The authors tried to tie in a correlation with declining participation in elections with the increase in TV advertising. The authors also surprised me by standing up for TV adds, negative or positive. They made the claim that most people gain their knowledge of candidates primarily from these adds so the volume of the adds helps in getting information out to the public.

Overall the book was useful and interesting in parts. It was just so badly written that the average reader is going to give up about 25 pages in. I wish the authors could have done a better job in the writing as the information contained in the book is eye opening if not a bit bias. The book is probably only for the political junkies of you.