Effective Negative Advertising in Political Campaigns Thesis by Peter Šechny Submitted in Partial fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts In Communication and Mass Media State University of New York Empire State College 2016 Reader: Ph.D., PhDr., M.A. Todd Nesbitt Acknowledgment First and foremost, I have to thank my thesis supervisor, Ph.D., PhDr., M.A Todd Nesbitt. Without his assistance and dedicated involvement in every step throughout the process, this paper would have never been accomplished. I would also like to thank to Branislav Masarovič, Lucia Nicholsonova and Veronika Deckerova, for their time and participation on the thesis interviews. However, none of this could have happened without my family. I would like to thank to my mother and father for their support not only during my senior year at university, but also during my whole studies. I also appreciate my sister for her faith in her brother, my grandparents for their sharing of experience, my colleagues Christy, Tomáš and Alena from the university, and my closest friends in Slovakia who made this time of my life unforgettable. I am happy that these people are around me. Table of Content I. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 6 II. Political Communication ........................................................................................... 8 II.I. The Role of Politicians .................................................................................. 8 II. II. The Role of Media ...................................................................................... 9 II. III. The Role of Citizens ................................................................................. 12 III. Advertising .............................................................................................................. 14 III.I. Political Advertising ................................................................................... 16 III. II. Political Advertising: Techniques and Applications ................................ 18 III. III. Negative Advertising .............................................................................. 20 III. IV. Forms of Negative Political Advertising ................................................ 22 III. V. Measurements of Effects of Negative Political Advertising .................... 23 IV. Politics in Slovakia .................................................................................................. 25 IV.I Negative Political Advertising in Slovakia ................................................ 27 IV. II. Marketing of Negative Political Advertising ........................................... 31 V. Case studies .............................................................................................................. 33 V.I. Bush vs. Dukakis ......................................................................................... 34 V. II. Fico vs. Kiska ............................................................................................ 36 V. III. Case studies from 2016 ............................................................................ 40 VI. Political Advertising in Slovakia: Empirical Study ............................................ 42 VI.I. Data Collection ........................................................................................... 43 VI. II. Research Sample ...................................................................................... 43 VI. III. Survey Questions .................................................................................... 44 VI. IV. Main Findings ......................................................................................... 44 VI. V. Gender Differences among Sample ......................................................... 46 VI. VI. Discussion .............................................................................................. 48 VII. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 48 Appendix ........................................................................................................................ 51 Works Cited ................................................................................................................... 54 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 59 Abstract The paper focuses on negative advertising in political campaigns. It includes the analy- sis of such topics as, the concept of Political Communication, its roots, and the different roles that create this field; the field of political advertising, its types, and forms as well as techniques for effective measurements. The focus is on Slovakia and the presence of political advertising and negative advertising in the campaigns in the country. It is sup- ported by different cases and comparisons within the same field in the United States of America (USA). The paper explores awareness through an empirical study of negative political advertising in Slovakia. The study shows that people are fully aware of nega- tive political advertising, accept it and can recognize its positives and negatives. It also proves that negative political advertising should not be the only type of advertisements used in political campaigns. I. Introduction In various ways, advertising has become an important tool for many businesses, but it has also become one of the most important parts of politics. Nowadays, rather than ten- ets and ideas, it is advertising and well-prepared marketing campaigns which help poli- ticians succeed in elections. However, the tone of their political campaigns is starting to change from positive to negative. Politicians and their parties are attacking each other through the media using negative information to change the perceptions of their voters. The whole political world has become a fighting arena, where the main issue is to search for negative information as well as to provide unclear and misleading materials. This paper focuses on advertising strategies in political campaigns, which are driven by different approaches, including positive and negative advertising. Positive advertising is mainly about promoting ideas, beliefs and approaches while negative advertising is ex- plained as any attack on the opponent (Walter, 2014, p. 44). Nowadays, it seems that people tend to be more receptive to negative rather than positive issues. It presents the fact that people are willing to pay more attention to negative issues more than positive ones (Zahedzadeh and Merolla, 2012, p.4). The companies and teams, which are work- ing on such campaigns, know what is important to say and what is not. Thus, the strate- gy of political advertisers has shaped into presenting more negative issues and attacking opponents. Political campaigning has also changed; it has become more commercial and expensive which puts those political parties which do not have enough money to fi- nance such campaigns at a disadvantage. As a consequence, only the biggest parties with substantial budgets are those that survive the elections in the first place (McNair, 2013, p.37). 6 The purpose of this thesis is to explore and analyze the role of negative advertising in contemporary political campaigns. Comparative case studies from Slovakia and the USA will be presented in order to assess the effectiveness of this style of advertising in Slovakia. It will also provide clear evidence regarding how negative advertising shapes the voters' attention and understanding of the issue. Additionally, it will argue that the teams working on campaigns need to be prepared to respond to the attacks on their can- didates as a result of negative ads. The first chapter will discuss political communication as a field. It will present basic terms and communicate how the media plays a crucial role in the realm of politics. Nowadays, it is also important for campaigners to interact with their electorates through different channels, for example, social media. The chapter will also divide political communication into three elements and provide a basic overview of each of them. At the time when negative advertising was changing and shaping to its current form, political experts shaped three different types of advertising in politics. These types are political attack advertising, comparative political advertising, and negative political ad- vertising (Hughes, 2003, p.164). The differences between the three forms and what they involved will be the subject of Chapter III.III. In Slovakia negative advertising is a relatively new tool in political campaigns. Slo- vakia, as a former communist country did not face negative campaigning in the past to the extent that it does today. Negative campaigning took its real form in the presidential elections in 2014 when it appeared between the two strongest candidates: socialist Rob- 7 ert Fico, who was at that time Prime Minister, and Andrej Kiska, who was new to poli- tics. This example, and others, will be discussed in Chapter V. II. II Political Communication To be able to take the right steps in campaigning and properly analyze its advertising components, it is important to understand political communication as a field. Political communication can be understood as a process of exchanging information among poli- ticians, media, and the public. It can be divided regarding actors of