Date:
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 - 3:00pm to 4:30pm
Citizen and scholar perceptions of advertising negativity are compared using original survey data from the 2012 US presidential election. As part of the Vanderbilt/You Gov Ad Rating Project, more than 17,000 respondents evaluated the negativity of 29 Obama and Romney ads. A national sample of campaigns and elections scholars evaluated a selection of these ads as well. It is found that citizen perceptions of negativity are profoundly affected by partisanship while scholar perceptions are not. As a result, citizen and scholar perceptions of negativity differ significantly.
