Attack ad

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An attack ad will generally unfairly criticize an opponent's political platform, usually by pointing out its faults. Often the ad will simply make use of innuendo, based on opposition research. Political attack ads across all types of media can have different strategic aims. Some are character attacks, trying to persuade the viewer to think differently about a candidates character in hopes that they will reconsider their perception of the candidate and who they are as a person. Another strategy is an attack on the candidates' policy or political ideas. This attempts to derail one's support for a candidate by persuading them that the candidate-under-attack's political ideas are illogical, extreme, or will be ineffective.^[1]

Televised attack ads rose to prominence in the United States in the 1960s, especially since Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations require over-the-air commercial TV stations with licenses issued by the FCC—effectively all regulated TV stations, since others would either be public television or be pirated—to air political ads by both parties, whether it be attack ads or more traditional political ads. Although cable television and the Internet are not required to air such ads, attack ads have become commonplace on both mediums as well.

Examples

United States

One of the earliest and most famous television attack ads, known as "Daisy", was used by Lyndon B. Johnson against Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. The ad opened with a young girl innocently picking petals from a daisy, while a man's voice performed a countdown to zero. It then zoomed in to an extreme close-up to her eye, and cut to an image of a nuclear explosion. The ad was shocking and disturbing, but also very effective. It convinced many that Goldwater's more aggressive approach to fighting the Cold War could result in a nuclear conflict.^[2]

During the 1968 presidential election, Vice President Hubert Humphrey made a political ad against candidate Spiro Agnew with Humphrey laughing on the TV screen showing the text "Agnew, for vice president?". The ad ended with a quote "This would be funny, if it weren't so serious..." and it also ended with Humphrey coughing due to his non-stop laughter.

Attack ads were used again by the campaign of George H. W. Bush against Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. The two most famous were the "Willie Horton" and "Tank Ride" ads. The "Willie Horton" ad began with a statement of Vice President Bush's support of the death penalty. Then it described the case of Willie Horton, who was convicted of murder. The ad stated that Governor Dukakis's prison furlough program (unsupervised weekend passes from Massachusetts prison) released Horton ten times; in one of those furloughs, he kidnapped a young couple, stabbed the boy and repeatedly raped the girl. The ad ended with, "Weekend prison passes. Dukakis on crime."^[3]

The "Tank Ride" ad

Mexico

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The first attack ads of the 2006 Mexican general election were launched by the conservative National Action Party against Andrés Manuel López Obrador; the ad claimed that López Obrador's "populistic" proposals would drive Mexico further into economic crisis and bankruptcy. The Party of the Democratic Revolution answered with attack ads against the current president Felipe Calderón, claiming that he was partly culpable for the 1994 economic crisis; since Calderón was running with a motto of "the president of employment", the ads closed with, "dirty hands, zero employments". After López Obrador alleged that Calderón was illegally patronizing his brother-in-law Hildebrando Zavala, the tagline was changed to "dirty hands, one employment for his brother-in-law".

Canada

Although it has been found that Canadian elections are less likely to use attack ads than US elections, there has been an increasingly strong presence of negative ads in Canadian campaigns in modern times. Comparatively, Canadians were more likely to use acclaim ads- or ads that praise another individual- than Americans, as American campaigns are much more likely to use attack ads than Canadian campaigns. Overall, however, Canadian campaigns are more likely to use attack ads than acclaim ads, similarly to the US.^[11] Famous examples of Canadian attack ads include the 1993 Chrétien attack ad during the 1993 Canadian federal election, and the 2006 Liberal Party of Canada election ads during the 2006 Canadian federal election, both of which were widely criticized and ultimately managed to improve the electoral results of the candidates being targeted by the ads.

Philippines

During the 2016 general election campaign, presidential candidate and Senator Antonio Trillanes launched negative advertisements that featured six children against presidential candidate and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte on ABS-CBN a few days before the election on May 9, 2016.^[12]

The 30-second advertisement showing each of the six children (four boys and two girls) briefly criticizes the video clips shown: Duterte's remarks of "killing everybody", his cursing on Pope Francis, yelling "Mabuhay ang NPA" (lit. 'Long live the NPA!'), kissing a woman and his comments about the rape-slay on the Australian missionary, the remarks of his war on drug campaign "would be bloody" should Duterte elected president, and finally raising his blurred middle finger.^[13]

The advertisement drew criticism from Duterte's supporters on social media.

Studies suggest that attack ads have no effect on voter turnout in the United States. There is, in fact, a noted negative impact on voter turnout by some researches, but it has no bearing on the evidence as it is statistically insignificant. The only case in which evidence reveals a correlation between negative advertising and voter turnout is for "late" negativity. This is when two conditions exist for the voter: they have already selected their preferred candidate and the attack and the negativity is about their selected candidate. If these two conditions exist, there is a negative effect on voter turnout. In this case, a forty percent increase in "late" negative ads will decrease the likelihood of turnout by 0.087, and a sixty percent increase in late ads merits a 0.145 decrease in turnout. Thus, the only case in which attack ads have been found to effect on voter turn out is when the voter has already selected their candidate, as they realize that their candidate is potentially no better than the alternative options.^[26]

Effectiveness

Studies claim that 82% of Americans dislike attack ads, and 53% believe that the "ethics and values" of election campaigns have worsened since 1985.^[27] The voting public see attack ads as an element of smear campaigning.^[28] Other research indicates that voters are open to candidates attacking each other if the issues in question are "appropriate". In a 1999 survey of Virginia voters, 80.7% felt it is fair for a candidate to criticize an opponent for "talking one way and voting another", though but only 7.7% feel it is fair for a candidate to attack an opponent for the "behavior of his/her family members".^[29]

Political operatives, however, have found attack ads to be useful, and

In the run up to, and in the 2015 Canadian federal election itself, Justin Trudeau, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the son of Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, was subjected to a sustained negative ad campaign by the Conservative Party of Canada. However, the "Just Not Ready" campaign was judged by the public as unfair and mocking of the Liberal leader.^[37] More importantly, the advertising campaign lowered public expectations of Trudeau's performance that even Conservative personnel noted that he would impress people if he showed any display of competence in public events such as the televised debates.^[38] That proved to be the case, and Trudeau took advantage of the public's low expectations to impress the public with his articulate and passionate manner to garner support throughout the campaign until his party won a majority government.^[39]

In 2006, Republican challenger

George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four includes mention of the "Two Minutes Hate", a routine in which workers are subject to films encouraging distrust, fear and hatred towards the enemies of Big Brother.

See also

• Ad hominem

References