Advertisements in Political Campaigns

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the effect that advertisements can have on the outcome of political campaigns and elections and how that influence can have national and international repercussions, especially when the advertisement campaigns present incomplete facts or misrepresent the truth.

From the Paper:

"Good ads have a dramatic effect on viewers as they address psychological factors like emotions rather than rational ones and, therefore, their use in political campaigns should be limited. In addition, ads are formed to inform the public about the merits of purchasing a certain product or supporting a certain issue or a political candidate. They should positively inform the viewers of the truth by relying and sticking to the facts. However, according to Robert H. Wozniak in "Walter Dill Scott: the Psychology of Advertising," creating ads that are built around the facts and which talk to the viewers ' rationality, is not really valid advertising. This is because "advertising has as its one function the influencing of the human mind...As it is the human mind that advertising is dealing with, its only scientific basis is psychology" (Scott qtd. in Woznaik). He meant that ads have a direct influence on viewers as they communicate with the human brain directly as a bullet and ads affect the people psychologically not rationally. Ads tell people what they want them to be informed with or even what they don't want to hear but in a way that they can identify with. Accordingly, as Wozniak explains, ads are hurt because the human attention span is short. This is an essential observation regarding the nature of ads because it means that their length does not allow for the publishing of all the truth regarding a product or an issue. Instead, an ad will select facts and leave claims unexplained. The second vital feature regarding successful ads made by Wozniak is that they play on the viewers' emotions."

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