A Meta-Analysis of Political TV Advertising

William L. Benoit, Wayne State University
Glenn M. Leshner, Stanford University
Sumana Chattopadhyay, Marquette University

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Originally published in Human Communication, Volume 10, No. 4 (2007).

This version of the journal article is identical to the published version.

The published version of the journal article is also available here.

Abstract

Political advertising is one of the dominant media for reaching voters. Previous metaanalyses (Allen & Burrell, 2002; Lau, Sigelman, Heldman, & Babbitt, 1999) found little or no net benefit to negative versus positive ads. However, this finding does not reveal whether ads have effects (both or neither could be persuasive). A meta-analysis revealed that political spots increased issue knowledge, influenced perceptions of the candidates’ character, altered attitudes, and affected candidate preference; influenced agenda-setting, and altered vote likelihood (turnout). One moderator variable was detected: The effect size for learning was larger for studies of students than non-students; however, the effect size for both sub-groups was significant. On the other hand, political ads had larger effects on attitudes for non-students than students.