The Positive Case For Negative Campaigning

Download or read book The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning written by Kyle Mattes and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades the conventional wisdom has been that voters hate negative campaigning. Some have even argued that it can be a deterrent to voting at all. "The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning "shows that negativity in campaigns is not only necessary, but is also often viewed as acceptable by voters themselves. The most comprehensive treatment to date of negativity in campaigns, Mattes and Redlawsk s book attacks the subject using a host of different approaches, including formal models, survey research, and laboratory experiments. The ability of candidates to go on the attack and to explicitly focus on information that otherwise would not be revealed, provides voters with more and fuller information than they would have otherwise had. At the same time, the authors find that voters can and do accept negativity as a legitimate part of the political environment. Much of their supposed dislike can be explained by how survey questions are worded. Voters responses to negativity vary greatly and can be better explained by the content and believability of the ads than simply by whether the ads are negative. All told, Mattes and Redlawsk make an original and compelling case that voters are not as negative about negativity as previously believed, as well as for its positive benefits in political campaigning."