Advertising Trends in 2010

Erika Franklin Fowler; Travis N Ridout

doi:10.2202/1540-8884.1411

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Advertising Trends in 2010

Erika Franklin Fowler and Travis N Ridout

Published/Copyright: January 10, 2011

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From the journal The Forum Volume 8 Issue 4

Political advertising offers an important window on American campaigns and elections. We analyze a comprehensive database of political ads aired during the 2010 midterms to shed light on campaign strategies in this history-making election. We find that with the increase in competitive races in 2010, the volume of advertising rose too, as did its negativity. Moreover, we track the issues mentioned by each party, finding that while the parties agreed that employment was the top issue, there was also much divergence in issue priorities, with Republicans taking up some unlikely themes such as health care and “change.” The high volume of advertising in 2010 suggests a greater potential for voter learning, but the high levels of ad negativity could have had both positive and negative consequences on the electorate.

Keywords: midterm elections; campaign advertising

Published Online: 2011-1-10

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.2202/1540-8884.1411

Keywords for this article

midterm elections; campaign advertising