This study aims to shed light on the relationship between the commercial advertising model AIDA (Awareness/Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) and political television advertising, with a historical perspective being of extra interest. In order to do so, the study made use of theories concerning the AIDA-model, representation, rhetoric (with focus on ethos, pathos, and logos), and the professionalisation of political communication. The methodology involved qualitative analyses of 18 official political campaign advertisements from nine United States presidential elections between the years 1952-2016. One issue-ad from each candidate (Republicans and Democrats only) from every other election was strategically chosen for examination. Each advertisement was then analysed both as it relates to its rhetorical content as well as its structure with the defined four stages of the AIDA-model in mind, with any potential patterns between the rhetoric and the structure being taken into account. The results of the study suggest that while the AIDA-model can be recognised in political television advertisements in the United States since the inception in the 1950s, the advertisements from the post-modern phase of the professionalisation of political communication (1985-) seem to place more emphasis, compared to the modern phase (1950s-1985), on the desire stage of the AIDA-model. Furthermore, no distinct differences could be found between the parties from a pure rhetorical and structural standpoint, and both appear to be on practically identical evolutionary paths. An explanation to this could be the escalating reliance on hiring independent experts and specialist to manage the various areas involved with running a political campaign, which is a characteristic of the ever-increasingly professional environment of political communication.

The diploma thesis "Some Features of Persuasive Language in Selected Presidential Campaign Speeches of Two Candidates" aims to investigate how the rhetorical device of conceptual metaphor is employed in the election campaign speeches of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney addressed mainly to the Hispanic voters to develop the myth of the American Dream. The political speeches were analyzed under the theoretical framework of the critical metaphor analysis and critical discourse analysis. Besides the analysis of the metaphorical concepts that support the myth creation, other rhetorical devices were examined in the selected corpus of the both speeches for their persuasive function.