Ask most Americans, and they'll tell you that presidential campaigns get dirtier and more negative with every election. This text suggests that this may not be as true as we think, and shows that over the last dozen elections, negativity may have been well publicised but hasn't increased.

In a timely contribution to the political communication and U.S. politics literature, Pfau and Kenski trace the nature and growth of political attack messages through the 1988 election. As the authors note at the outset, political attack messages have grown more and more popular in contemporary political advertising, in large part because research indicates that attack messages are extremely effective in influencing voters. The authors examine the various attack strategies, both generally and as applied in specific campaigns, and then focus on responses to political attacks. Particular attention is given to the resistance strategy of inoculation which, the authors argue, is one of the few viable strategic defenses available to candidates who find themselves under attack. In addition to reviewing early laboratory research on inoculation, the authors present the results of two large experimental field studies--one involving a Senate campaign in 1986, the other the 1988 presidential campaign--which represent the first tests of inoculation in a political campaign context. Following an overview of the historical role played by attack messages in American politics, the authors examine the rapid growth of attack politics during the Reagan era, culminating in the 1988 election. They demonstrate the inadequacies of existing and proposed options for limiting the use of attack messages in political campaigns, arguing that the judiciary's support for unfettered political expression combined with the perception among campaign professionals that attack strategies are an important and effective option mitigate against any decrease in their use. The authors also point out the inadequacies inherent in present defenses against attack messages--the preemptive attack, the refutation strategy, and the counterattack strategy. Turning to a consideration of the inoculation message strategy, Pfau and Kenski present an extended discussion of the results of the 1986 and 1988 field studies. The findings indicate that inoculation messages deflect the persuasiveness of subsequent attack messages that might be launched by an opponent during a campaign, thereby reducing the likelihood that political attacks will influence either receiver attitudes about candidates or actual receiver votes. Both political scientists and political campaign professionals will find Attack Politics enlightening and provocative reading.

Americans tend to see negative campaign ads as just that: negative. Pundits, journalists, voters, and scholars frequently complain that such ads undermine elections and even democratic government itself. But John G. Geer here takes the opposite stance, arguing that when political candidates attack each other, raising doubts about each other’s views and qualifications, voters—and the democratic process—benefit. In Defense of Negativity, Geer’s study of negative advertising in presidential campaigns from 1960 to 2004, asserts that the proliferating attack ads are far more likely than positive ads to focus on salient political issues, rather than politicians’ personal characteristics. Accordingly, the ads enrich the democratic process, providing voters with relevant and substantial information before they head to the polls. An important and timely contribution to American political discourse, In Defense of Negativity concludes that if we want campaigns to grapple with relevant issues and address real problems, negative ads just might be the solution.

These days the truth is hard to find. If the press is not beleived-or believable-because politicians have turned the public against it, then the press is not free, and without a free press, there is no democracy. Includes behind the scenes stories about reporters and politicians in conflict, an objective look at the ongoing debate over liberal and conservative bias in the news media, an engaging story of the Internet's positive and negative impact on the reliable flow of information, and a media resource guide to the best sources of objective reporting.

This second edition of Attack Politics updates Emmett Buell and Lee Sigelman's highly regarded study of negativity in presidential campaigns since 1960 with a substantial new chapter on the 2008 contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. That campaign, the authors contend, proved to be the least negative in the last half century and reinforces their central argument that these campaigns have actually not grown "dirtier" and more negative since the election of JFK. In this new edition, Buell and Sigelman address the same questions that guided their research in the original book. Who attacked whom? How frequently? On what issues? In what ways? And at what point in the race? They also update their analysis of whether presidential campaigns have gotten more negative since 1960, whether opposing sides addressed the same issues or avoided subjects "owned" by the other side, and whether trailing candidates wage more negative campaigns than leading candidates. The authors expand their analysis well beyond their original research base-17,000 campaign statements extracted from nearly 11,000 news items in the New York Times—focusing on both presidential and vice-presidential nominees as sources and targets of attacks and examining the actions of surrogate campaigners. They also compare their findings with previously published accounts of these campaigns—including firsthand accounts by candidates and their confidants. Each chapter features "echoes from the campaign trail" that reflect the invective exchanged by rival campaigns. Their new chapter shows that, rather than neatly resembling either of their typology's extremes ("runaways" or "dead heats"), the 2008 race began as a "dead heat" in late summer but began to take on all the characteristics of a "somewhat competitive" affair by the end of September. Campaign discourse that began with an anticipated focus on the Iraq War and other national security issues came to be dominated by concerns about the economic meltdown. As the campaign headed toward the home stretch, anxiety about the economy seemed to eclipse national security, health care, immigration, and other concerns. This shift of emphasis, they argue, doomed whatever chance McCain had of winning. Like the first edition, this update of Attack Politics systematically analyzes negative campaigning, pinning down much that has previously been speculated on but left unsubstantiated. It offers the best overview yet of modern presidential races and remains must reading for anyone interested in the vagaries of those campaigns.

A study of the consequences of partisan communication on the stability of unified government of the United States.