| Political advertising research has quickly become one of the major areas of study in political communication. One important factor behind the rise in the study of political advertising is the increasing importance placed on political ads in American presidential campaigns. The impact of candidate spots on voting behavior, candidate evaluations, voter utility, and information processing has dominated effects research. This dissertation answers a call from the Journal of Communication editions which focus on the "Future of the Field." In the Journal, Rosengren (1993) argues that a deficiency in the field of communication is that of the lack of cumulative growth: the failure to build on the known. Chapter 1 of this dissertation identifies the political and mass communication theories relevant to political advertising effects research and questions whether the effects research on political spots echoes the reset in the voting behavior literature. By synthesizing the research in cognitive, affective, and behavioral areas, several important propositional statements emerge. The dissertation builds from the empirical consistencies in effects research and proposes an organizing model of political advertising effects. The model proposed is a multi-process model of effects in which stimulus, subject, and environmental variables mutually influence voting outcome.; The dissertation concludes with an analysis and discussion of the state of political advertising effects research. Limitations of the proposed model and the effects research are identified. |
