Just at whom are these political ads aimed?
Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 09:18AM
Like, I suspect, most of my readers, I am sick and tired of political ads, especially those on television. I only watch the news on TV, but I’ve been so overwhelmed that I am missing the ads for drugs with 50 side effects and bundled car insurance that comes with a flightless bird.
Both political parties are constantly running ads that are personality, rather than issue, based. Scare tactics, accusatory remarks, and dire predictions are accompanied by darkened grimaces and glaring stares of these menacing potential demagogues. Based on attack ads, I wouldn’t vote for Jesus or Mother Theresa were they running.
There must be some empirical evidence to back up the effectiveness of this form of persuasion. At what type of voter are these multi-million dollar campaign efforts aimed exactly? Last minute voters? Twitter affectionados? Psychopaths? Sufferers from advanced dementia? The completely illiterate? (The same people who would try drugs with severe side effects or buy insurance from an emu, perhaps?)
I hope in this election that people vote on candidates’ and parties’ well-defined values, goals, and strengths. There is plenty of fairly robust information available if one wants to know a candidate’s stance on the environment, taxes, Social Security, abortion, education, gun control, etc. Unfortunately we are in an era of bumpersticker and Tweet lengths of discourse.
Vote as you will, but please vote informed. We have enough simplistic ideologues in government already.
Thus endeth the rant.
Reader Comments (1)
The DC area is both an expensive media market and not especially competitive in this election. As a result we have been spared the glut of political advertising that you and friends in other places are seeing.
However, the ads I have seen are very much like you describe, designed to scare the viewer out of voting for the other guy, rather than laying out why you should vote for them. I'm not sure what research their marketing people have showing this is effective. It might work on some people but I'm also completely turned off by it.