Volume 4, Issue 1, Fall 2000

Reviewed by: Fredel M. Wiant, University of Utah

This newest volume of the Praeger Series in Political Communication makes an invaluable contribution to the study of Presidential campaign ads by providing a sound empirical format for examining spot advertisements used by presidential candidates, beginning with the Eisenhower-Stevenson race in 1952.

Benoit makes a cogent and well-supported argument for the validity of studying the composition and use of spot advertisements as an increasingly important factor in the election process.  He then explains the purpose of this particular study, which is to provide: a) a "theoretical framework for understanding the fundamental functions of political advertising, b) a classification system that can account for "both dimensions used in the literature: functions . . .  and topic" and, c)  a method of analyzing spot ads that avoids the negative/positive binary and allows for multiple functions within the same ad (pp.10-11).

Benoit examines ads from each candidate, including major third-party candidates and in some cases he includes analyses of primary races. Ads are coded according to whether they are directed at policy (subdivided into past deeds, future plans, or general goals) or character (subdivided into personal qualities, leadership, or ideals); whether the basic function of the ads is to acclaim, attack, or defend; and whether the candidate appears in the spot or is represented by surrogates. He supports the empirical data with a collection of complete texts of sample ads, including bracketed representation of visual elements.  This technique allows the reader to see the ad in context and verify the credibility of the coding and analysis, particularly in cases where there may be some ambiguity.

The organization of the book reveals an interesting pattern of eight-year cycles. "In the Beginning" deals with the 1952 and 1956 campaigns, the "earliest campaigns to employ television spots" (p. 25). Benoit categorizes the next two elections (1960, 1964) with the title "The Democrats Ascend." "Nixon's Return" covers the 1968 and 1972 elections. A chapter titled "After Watergate" covers the 1976 and 1980 elections; this is the only two-election cycle that is split between the two parties. He labels the 1984 and 1988 elections "The Republicans in Control," and concludes the campaign-by-campaign analysis with "The End of the Millennium: 1992, 1996."

After presenting the data from each campaign, Benoit provides statistical comparisons and contrasts for each category. The comparisons within each election cycle provide a convenient and meaningful tool for substantiating assumptions about the nature of a particular candidate's political advertising, which is enhanced by charts showing the comparisons among trends in advertising over the 12 cycles included in the study. Some of the comparison charts show surprising results. For example, Benoit charts both attack and acclaim ads by winners and losers. Contrary to the popular conception that "negative ads work," he shows that, in general, winners have more acclaim ads and losers more attack ads. One explanation of this apparent contradiction may be some confusion over what constitutes a "negative" or attack ad. Benoit addresses by comparing his results with several other studies (e.g., Kaid and Johnston, 1991; Kaid and Ballotti, 1991; West, 1997) and suggests that there are differences in coding procedures. I would argue that the contradiction to popular wisdom may be due to varying public opinions about what constitutes a "negative" ad, whether attack ads should always be considered as negative, and whether policy attacks are treated the same as character attacks by the audience. Observation of focus groups recently televised on C-SPAN and other networks suggest that there may be wide differences in the way political operatives, scholars, and the public define "attack" and "negative" ads, terms that I argue should not be used interchangeably. This confusion leads Benoit to the surprising conclusion that "the single most negative advertising campaign in history was conducted by Eisenhower in 1952 (attacks accounted for 69% of his utterances)" (p. 201).

In the conclusion Benoit identifies several patterns that emerge from the study: television spots have become shorter, more dense, more negative (with the exception of 1952), and less defensive, and more inclined to rely on surrogates. He also suggests that primary spots and third party spots are, as a rule, more positive, Republicans are more positive than Democrats, and that, while candidates who are behind are more negative, both sides involved in close races are generally more positive. Finally, Benoit suggests some excellent possibilities for future research--a potential "gold mine" for those communication scholars interested in this very timely and important study--and argues that in doing such research we should stop categorizing entire ads by a single theme, using instead the multiple analysis his method makes possible.

Back to Top
Home | Current Issue | Archives | Editorial Information | Search | Interact