What is ‘legitimacy’? Is legitimation possible through non-linguistic modes? These are the key theoretical questions with which this study is concerned. It explores them in conjunction with an analysis of American political spot advertisements. These ads are situated at the nexus between legitimation and multimodality, and their relevance to contemporary politics on the world stage is reflected in the immense financial and skilled resources which have been — and continue to be — devoted to them. A historical perspective into legitimation, multimodality and the attendant concepts of rationality and irrationality is given, followed by a discussion challenging the assumed rational role accorded to language. So challenged, the discussion moves to looking at the pairing of multimodality and politics; first from a historical viewpoint, and then from a more contemporary one. The role of myth, in the form of the American Dream, is investigated, leading to discussion of political appropriation, branding, tangibility, affordances and the (im)possibility of restricting interpretation. Spot ads are analysed with a specific focus: first on modal salience, and secondly on how the semiotic richness of the concept of nature is exploited for purposes of legitimation.

Economic voting--the effect of national economic circumstances on vote preferences--is often seen as the closest thing to a law that exists in the social sciences. Why, then, do incumbents frequently win amidst economic downturns and challengers in economic boom times? I argue that the conventional wisdom fails because it leaves no room for political leadership. Rejecting the notion that candidates have little influence over when and to what extent economic voting occurs, I develop a campaign-centered theory that highlights candidates' power to alter the strength of the economic vote strategically. Specifically, I draw on cognitive-psychological research on priming to argue that candidates' decisions to emphasize or deemphasize economic issues in campaign messages--decisions which I argue are not endogenous to economic context--systematically condition voters' willingness to hold governments accountable for past economic performance. I test my argument against the conventional economic voting model by evaluating the impact of televised campaign ads in national elections in five countries. Combining quantitative analysis of public opinion data with original content analysis of both televised ads and newspaper stories, I show that the effect of economic campaign messages on the economic vote is profound. In some cases, the effect is electorally decisive. In elections in which candidates focus on non-economic issues, however, evaluations of the nation's economic performance have little influence on vote preferences. Only when candidates focus squarely on economic issues do voters come to evaluate the candidates based on economic considerations. Notably, I show that this activating effect is driven by exposure to economic campaign ads in particular, not the campaign in general as conventional theory predicts. Electoral campaigns, therefore, can overcome structural conditions thought to hamstring electoral candidates. More generally, I show that, by reevaluating the psychology of economic voting in light of extensive research on priming, we can improve our understanding of election outcomes in both developed and developing democracies that conventional models treat as anomalous. / text

Thesis (M.S.)--South Dakota State University, 2007. / Adviser: Laurie Haleta. Includes bibliographical references.

The general debate around political advertising on television has been that the political advertisements on television concentrate more on the images rather than the political issues and thus, create an electorate who is entertained by the catchy slogans and this hinders a well informed decision. The study investigates the rise of political advertising on television in South Africa and its implications for democracy. It is focused on the 2009 pre-elections and specifically on the political advertisements which appeared on national television during the pre-election period beginning from 30th March 2009 up until 20th April 2009. The study also examines the extent to which political advertisements on television commodify politics. Furthermore, it explores the themes covered in the political advertisements on television and the extent to which these political advertisements focus on the images than the themes. In addition, the study also looks into the underlying issues and complexities, such as regulation and funding and financing issues which are hidden from the public glare, accompanying the images and messages seen on television around election time. Qualitative methods are used and the study is both descriptive and explorative and as means of interpreting the data, thematic content analysis is used. The critical political economy of the media theory is employed as well as the democratic theories of the media, with a key focus on liberal democracy and deliberative democracy. Thus the findings showed that the political advertisements on television in South Africa were informative as they concentrated more on the themes than the images and, in many instances where the images were used it was mainly to support the message. However, the political advertisements had some emotional appeals which communicated emotions of sadness and despair as well as emotions of happiness and success. Character appeals were used at minimum and it was only three political parties which made use of their leaders with only one political party, out of the three, using their leader throughout the advertisement. The issue of commodity in politics was very prominent in the political advertisements on television thus it can be concluded that political advertising on television commodify politics to a large extent in the production and distribution process but to a minimum extent in the content. The implications of the rise of political advertising on television for democracy are twofold because they are both positive and negative. It is recommended that the regulations on political advertising on television be re-visited and reviewed. Thus, a prospective model for the regulation of political advertising on television is also illustrated in the study.

This thesis proposes an alternative way of establishing a link between market orientation and electoral success, by focusing on market orientation as a message instead of as a management function. Using interpretive textual analysis the thesis examines the advertising messages of the highest polling political parties for evidence of voter orientation and competitor orientation in the 1999 and 2002 New Zealand general election campaigns. Relating manifest market orientation to a number of statistical indicators of electoral success the thesis looks for plausible associations between the visual manifestation of market orientation in political advertisements and parties' achievement of their party vote goals in the 1999 and 2002 elections. It offers party-focused explanations for electoral outcomes to complement existing voter-centric explanations, and adds another level of scholarly understanding of recent electoral outcomes in New Zealand.While the thesis finds little association between demonstration of competitor orientation in political advertisements and electoral success, it finds a plausible relationship between parties that demonstrated a voter orientation in their political advertisements and goal achievement. The parties that achieved their party vote goals in 1999 and 2002 tended to demonstrate an affinity for their target voter groups by showing images of voters and their environments and images of party leaders interacting with voters. They demonstrated concern for the satisfaction of the needs of existing voters by using words of togetherness and proving they had met their previous promises. They did not change their policy or leadership messages dramatically between campaigns. There was a visual consistency to their television, print and billboard advertising messages which rendered the messages easy to recognise and remember. They were clear about what they were offering in exchange for the party vote and recognised the need to offer something in addition to previous offerings in order to attract new voters.

Šiame magistro baigiamajame darbe yra nagrinėjami politinių partijų finansavimo šaltiniai. Nepaisant atrodytų griežto reglamentavimo, politinių partijų finansavimas yra vienas iš „opiausių“ konstitucinės teisės institutų. Politinės partijos neretai bando apeiti įstatymuose nustatytą finansavimo tvarką ar gauti piniginių lėšų iš įstatymuose nereglamentuotų šaltinių. Politinės partijos yra viena iš svarbiausių demokratinės valstybės prielaidų. Todėl labai svarbu, kad jos būtų skaidriai finansuojamos. Svarbu, kad įstatymuose būtų aiškiai apibrėžti politinių partijų finansavimo šaltiniai, naudojimosi jais tvarka, o taip pat nustatyta realiai veikianti finansavimo tvarkos priežiūra ir atsakomybė už jos pažeidimus. Todėl šiame darbe yra detaliai analizuojami ne tik politinių partijų finansavimo šaltiniai – partijų nario mokestis, valstybės biudžeto parama, lėšos gautos iš kitos politinių partijų veiklos ar juridinių ir fizinių asmenų aukos – bet atskirose darbo dalyse yra nagrinėjama pačios politinės partijos samprata bei jos vaidmuo visuomenės gyvenime ir politinių partijų finansavimo kontrolės mechanizmas. Atskiras skyrius skiriamas politinei reklamai kaip politinių partijų finansavimo šaltiniui. Svarbu visiems politinės kampanijos dalyviams sudaryti vienodas sąlygas pasinaudoti erdve reklamai, o taip pat tinkamai informuoti visuomenę, kad toks informacinis pranešimas yra politinė reklama. Šiame darbe nagrinėjamos problemos yra nuolatinis politikų ir teisininkų diskusijų objektas... [to full text] / This study tries to look into the financial sources of political parties. Despite let’s say exact regulation the sponsorship of political parties becomes one of the sore points concerning this institute in Constitutional law. The political parties often try to avoid the orderliness of sponsorship set in the law or get other allocation which does not correspond with the provisions of the law. The political parties are the most important premise in democratic states. Therefore it is very important issue that the sponsorship of all political parties should be transparent. It is highly essential that the sources of sponsorship as well as supervision of its usages and responsibility will be treated as real measures and set down in the law. That is why this study research not only the sponsorship of the political parties – party dues, state funds, other assets of a state or contribution made by natural or legal persons, but also takes a look to the conception of political party its role in public life and the mechanism of sponsorship control. In this study a special chapter is devoted to a political advertising which becomes a special issue concerning the sponsorship of political parties. It is in the interest that the possibility of buying advertising space should be available to all contending parties, and on equal conditions and rates of payment. Secondly the public should be aware that the message is a paid political advertisement. In conclusion it is to be said that this study... [to full text]

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:30:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Capa.pdf: 30348 bytes, checksum: 2d14e8afcece0b1ca79ec2934a66480e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-04-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The purpose of the research is to find out how the political advertising from Washington Luís in the electoral process of 1925/1926, was arranged and also how the coverage of this process was made by the newspapers "O Estado de S. Paulo" and "Correio da Manhã". Using the methodology of historical research and concepts of political advertising, it will be analysed how "O Paulista de Macaé/RJ" built his political and personal career as weel as his indication to highest political position in the Republic.(AU) / O objetivo da pesquisa é sistematizar como foi articulada a propaganda política de Washington Luís no processo eleitoral de 1925/1926, como também verificar de que forma ocorreu a cobertura deste processo pelos jornais O Estado de S. Paulo e Correio da Manhã. Utilizando a metodologia de pesquisa histórica e conceitos de propaganda política, será analisado como o paulista de Macaé construiu sua trajetória política e pessoal até ser indicado ao mais alto cargo político da República.(AU)

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While conventional wisdom suggests political ads are often misleading, this is the first known study to quantify the prevalence of inaccuracies in political advertising. This study also examines how and explains why the U.S. news media provide coverage of political advertising in the manner that they do. A multi-method research design includes a content analysis of the television ads from the 2008 presidential election, secondary data analysis of the National Annenberg Election Survey 2008, semantic network analysis of press coverage of political television ads from the 2008 election, as well as in-depth interviews with scholars, practitioners, journalists and lawyers having expertise in the issues surrounding political advertising. Of all the English-language paid political ads that aired on television during the 2008 general election, just under 30% contained at least one inaccuracy based upon the ratings of FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com. This figure, however, is likely a gross under representation of the prevalence of inaccuracies in political ads from 2008 because most of the ads (70%) were never evaluated by these purportedly elite fact-checkers. Among ads assessed, however, more than three out of four of the evaluated claims had some degree of inaccuracy. Furthermore, ads containing at least one inaccuracy aired twice as often on television as the ads that were never evaluated. To the degree inaccurate ads air on television more frequently, then, there is cause for concern particularly given the broadcasters' mandate to serve the public interest. Moreover, while political interest supporters were one of the groups most likely to have inaccuracies in their ads, nearly half of their spending was in the last weeks of the election contributing to most of their ads going without evaluation. Thus, in a post-Citizens United world, attempts by fact-checkers to review the onslaught of PAC ads during the final weeks of the 2012 election (and the final weeks of future elections) will be crucial in combating inaccuracies. This study also extends the work of Geer (2006) who offered an organized review of negativity in political advertising. Rather than finding support for the hypothesis that negative attack ads are more accurate than advocacy ads, the evidence challenges Geer's defense of negativity. Among the ads evaluated by the fact-checkers, inaccuracies were significantly more likely to be present in attack rather than either advocacy or contrast ads. While Geer may have demonstrated that negative ads offer more substantive evidence, simply because evidence is presented does not mean the evidence is accurate. In the more provocative ads of 2008 designed to gain attention, inaccuracies were rife. Moreover, rather than the mainstream news media fixation on political ad negativity, the evidence in the forthcoming pages suggests attention is more warranted concerning the accuracy of the claims within the ads regardless of the ad's tone. A first step toward a theory of strategic misinformation is also offered by demonstrating that it is possible to predict which political ads were more likely to draw an inaccurate rating from the fact-checkers. Holding all other variables constant, it was attack ads that had the highest odds of being evaluated as inaccurate with contrast ads also having a high likelihood. These predictions also confirmed that as the campaign progressed, the odds of an ad being rated inaccurate declined which was a function of ads not being evaluated. Furthermore, it was revealed that a loss of momentum or a decline in public perceptions of candidate characteristics increased the odds of candidates drawing inaccurate ratings in their attack ads. In extending understanding of how news media cover candidate campaigns when political advertising is referenced, a plurality of media outlets from the over two dozen in the study were characterized foremost by their focus on campaign strategy rather than fact-checking. One cluster, however, emerged as AdWatchers - those committed to using political ads to scrutinize the accuracy of what candidates and their surrogates were claiming. Nonetheless, the economic realities of adwatching are that there is a so called "chilling effect" because it is expensive, time-consuming, and divisive. Furthermore, the dearth of watchdog ad reporting enables broadcast stations to continue airing ads that may be false while preserving their ability to claim ignorance about the content when faced with regulatory compliance issues. Thus, the political ads most likely to air are the ones with inaccuracies. Chances are the ads will go unscrutinized by the mainstream news media while television stations profit from their proliferation. / Mass Media and Communication