Candidate Choice in Political Advertising: What Determines Who Gets Attention?
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Jonas Lefevere
In the run up to the elections, parties have several ways of communicating with voters. In this article, we focus on one piece of the puzzle: advertisements of political parties in the mass media. More specifically, we are interested in the choice of candidates within these advertisements. In countries where parties are the dominant actor, they are faced with a choice: not all candidates can be promoted in the campaign, as this would be too costly and inefficient. Thus, the first question we want to answer is which factors determine candidate choice in political advertisements? Secondly, does candidate choice in political advertisements have an effect on the subsequent coverage in media as well? Agenda setting research has shown that as far as issues are concerned, advertisements do set the media agenda. We use a content analysis of seven magazines and newspapers that was collected in the run up to the 2009 regional elections in Flanders, the largest region of Belgium. The results indicate that both internal party hierarchy, as well as external visibility of candidates determines candidate choice in political advertisements. Furthermore, the agenda setting effect of political advertisements is confirmed as well.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Sphere Effects: A History of Peter Sloterdijk's Political Architectures
- Co-Production as a Political Form
- Office Allocation in the Czech Government and Chamber of Deputies in Light of Coalition Theory
- The Impact of International Politics on Commercial Flows in the Age of Globalization
- The Electoral System as a Factor in Striking a Balance between Governmental Stability and Representation
- Non-Partisan Candidates and Lists at Slovenian Local Elections, 1994-2010
- Candidate Choice in Political Advertising: What Determines Who Gets Attention?
- Bringing the Olympic Rationality Back In? Coherence, Integration and Effectiveness of Public Policies
- Constitutional Barriers and the Privatization of Public Utilities in Rich Democracies
- Size and Equal Opportunity in the Democratic Process: The Effect of the Danish Local Government Reform on Inequality in Internal Political Efficacy
- Alterations of Voting in Lithuania's Municipal Council Elections: Macrolevel Analysis
- The Norwegian Electoral System and its Political Consequences
- The New Regional Order and Transnational Civil Society in Southeast Asia: Focusing on Alternative Regionalism from below in the Process of Building the ASEAN Community
