Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-152).

Based on the athor's thesis, Marburg 1963, with title: Wortschatz und Wortgebrauch der politischen Werbung. / Bibliography: p. 168-178.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Paris VII. / Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 1-13 (5th group)).

In the first chapter, I measure the effects of street-level political advertising on voting behavior. I use a novel dataset on ad location in a major Spanish city during elections for the national parliament as well as granular socio-economic and voting data. This set-up, where more than two parties are running for office and elections are very competitive, allows me to explore the heterogeneous effects of ads across parties as well as how parties' ads affect other parties' vote shares. To identify the effects of parties' ads, I exploit a legally mandated randomized assignment of ad location to parties across multiple years. I find that a party's own ads have a positive effect on its vote share, although the effects are heterogeneous across parties. A one standard deviation increase in the number of ads increases a party's vote share by 0.79 percentage points on average. Ads of parties with ideologically distant platforms consistently have a negative effect on a party's vote share. In contrast, ads of parties that are close competitors may act either as complements or substitutes in different years. The second chapter analyses the effects of an economic shock on the emergence of new parties and other changes in voting parties by using regional variation in the exposure to the shock. I find that a worsening of economic conditions as measured by unemployment rate leads to an increase in electoral competition and volatility. In particular, the deeper the effects of the recession in a area, the larger the number of new parties emerge and become more successful and there is an increase in the changes in vote shares. On the other hand, the vote share of parties previously in government decreases and a decrease in vote share concentration. The third chapter is a co-authored works where we present experimental evidence establishing that the level of incentives affects both gameplay and beliefs. Holding fixed the actions of the other player, we find that, in the context of dominance-solvable games, higher incentives make subjects more likely to best-respond to their beliefs. Moreover, higher incentives result in more responsive beliefs but not necessarily less biased. We provide evidence that incentives affect effort and that it is effort, and not incentives directly, that accounts for the changes in belief formation. The results support models where, in addition to choice mistakes, players exhibit costly attention.

The 1988 presidential campaign was considered by many members of the news media as one of the most negative presidential campaigns in twenty years. Since then a good deal of attention has focused on negative televised political commercials. Negative televised political commercials are commercials which attack or criticize opponents and often only towards the end remind the voter of the alternative candidate. The goal of negative ads is to affect voters on both a rational and emotional level. Critics of negative political advertising believe negative ads are detrimental to the democratic process because they create a negative atmosphere which may engulf the campaign, dissuade voters from participating in the democratic process, impair the ability of voters to make informed decisions, and they often play on the prejudices and fears of the voters. critics have offered various solutions which would curb the use or help candidates protect themselves against negative attacks, and one such solution is the "inoculation message strategy." In their book Attack Politics, Michael Pfau and Henry Kenski offer the "inoculation message strategy" as a method in the defense of negative advertising. The inoculation message strategy uses two-sided arguments to defend against attack messages. In Pfau and Kenski's research they used written attack messages in their experiments. This thesis will test the ability of the inoculation message strategy to defend against actual televised political commercials. / Master of Arts

Thesis (M.Com.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Business and Economic Sciences, 2017 / With an increase in competition in the political sector, there is a paradigm shift as parties revert to branding to influence voters’ political party brand preference. Political marketing is one of the most important aspects of developing industry which affects institutions, people and the involvement of successful candidates in the modern generation of politics. Therefore, it is of interest to examine how political party branding can enhance brand preference of the voters. Although several studies have explored political marketing and factors influencing university students’ intention to vote using various mediums, few studies have explored distinctive cues as a holistic concept in investigating the effect on youth of brand image and brand preference. More precisely, few studies have explored this topic in a political context among the youth in South Africa. This research purpose is to determine whether political party branding influences voting brand preference among the youth in South Africa, through the means of the proposed conceptual model, brand identity, positive word of mouth and brand authenticity as the predictors, brand image as the mediating variable, and brand preference as the outcome variable. The current study undertakes a quantitative approach, where 379 questionnaires were received from the respondents, (University of the Witwatersrand students), to explore the influence of political party branding on voting brand preference among the youth in South Africa. The data was analysed using structural equation modelling and Amos 23.0. Findings support all five proposed hypotheses. Hence indicating that brand identity, positive word of mouth and brand authenticity, influences brand image and brand preference. The contribution of this study is to provide general information to guide political parties or politics in South Africa in developing marketing / branding strategies based on the concept of brand preference. These contributions will help different types of political parties in having the knowledge of the critical role of brand preference and its implementation in the political marketing context. Theoretically, it is positioned in political marketing and adds to empirical literature that focuses on political branding, branding and voters’ preference in political parties. Lastly, by examining the predictors’ variables and their influence on brand image and brand preference, the findings provide political parties with a better understanding of branding strategies that can be implemented to influence voters’ preference before, during and after a campaign through comprehensive political branding. / XL2018

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

M.A. (Communication Studies) / This dissertation will concentrate on the manner in which the signification system of popular culture in advertising texts operate within the context of changing South African or post apartheid society. Social and political changes have taken place virtually overnight and it is therefore not surprising that the effects of these transformations have not yet filtered through to all layers of society. Furthermore, such quick changes cannot take place without causing at least some ripples of dissent and upheaval within certain sectors of society which may include cultural groups or even business. The author will consequently examine the effect which social changes have had on the perceptions of advertisers in the marketplace and the manner in which their brands are portrayed within advertising texts. More specifically, an investigation will be undertaken into the manner in which Popular Culture, whiph is inherently South African, has been incorporated within the contents of those texts. Popular Culture, it will be argued, has moved away from being a term used by classical Marxists to describe a so-called mass culture. In fact, within the context of a postmodern society, in other words, one which is essentially multi-faceted, the . concept Popular Culture-encapsulates that which is used within the day-to-day living experience to make a statement of dissent with the mainstream. Therefore the task set by this dissertation is manifold. the first instance we will place the South African market within a historic, cultural and economic context. In other words, we will attempt to trace the life-world of the South

From the television advertisements made by presidential candidates from 1952 to 1976, this study analyzed the 131 advertisements that contained women. The analysis used the following descriptors: Number of Women's Roles, Age, Occupation, Marital Status, Locale, Concerns, and Status Relative to the Candidate. The results indicate that women are most likely to be shown as physically present although not speaking, in the 18 to 30 age group, belonging to a non-business atmosphere yet outside the home, and of an unknown marital status, and will not be shown in the same frame as the candidate. Womens' images in these advertisements were most commonly associated with issues involving the cost of living, taxes, pro-Nixon, and social security.

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-53).