It is common knowledge that televised political ads are meant to appeal to voters' emotions, yet little is known about how or if these tactics actually work. Ted Brader's innovative book is the first scientific study to examine the effects that these emotional appeals in political advertising have on voter decision-making.
At the heart of this book are ingenious experiments, conducted by Brader during an election, with truly eye-opening results that upset conventional wisdom. They show, for example, that simply changing the music or imagery of ads while retaining the same text provokes completely different responses. He reveals that politically informed citizens are more easily manipulated by emotional appeals than less-involved citizens and that positive "enthusiasm ads" are in fact more polarizing than negative "fear ads." Black-and-white video images are ten times more likely to signal an appeal to fear or anger than one of enthusiasm or pride, and the emotional appeal triumphs over the logical appeal in nearly three-quarters of all political ads.
Brader backs up these surprising findings with an unprecedented survey of emotional appeals in contemporary political campaigns. Politicians" do" set out to campaign for the hearts and minds of voters, and, for better or for worse, it is primarily through hearts that minds are won. "Campaigning for Hearts and Minds "will be indispensable for anyone wishing to understand how American politics is influenced by advertising today.

This book investigates how political parties from 12 European countries used Facebook to inform, interact with and mobilise voters at the 2019 European Parliament election. Following a joint theoretical framework and method, the results of a content analysis of more than 14,000 Facebook posts are presented. Country specific chapters are followed by analyses of European parties' Facebook campaigning, the spread of populism and the use of Facebook ads by the parties. The final chapter compares all countries showing that campaigns are more strongly shaped by the national than by the European political context. Facebook is used for campaigning as usual; parties inform and persuade but neglect the platform's mobilisation and particularly interactive affordances.

African American voters are a key demographic to the modern Democratic base, and conventional wisdom has it that there is political cost to racialized "dog whistles," especially for Democratic candidates. However, politicians from both parties and from all racial backgrounds continually appeal to negative racial attitudes for political gain. Challenging what we think we know about race and politics, LaFleur Stephens-Dougan argues that candidates across the racial and political spectrum engage in "racial distancing," or using negative racial appeals to communicate to racially moderate and conservative whites--the overwhelming majority of whites--that they will not disrupt the racial status quo. Race to the Bottom closely examines empirical data on racialized partisan stereotypes to show that engaging in racial distancing through political platforms that do not address the needs of nonwhite communities and charged rhetoric that targets African Americans, immigrants, and others can be politically advantageous. Racialized communication persists as a well-worn campaign strategy because it has real electoral value for both white and black politicians seeking to broaden their coalitions. Stephens-Dougan reveals that claims of racial progress have been overstated as our politicians are incentivized to employ racial prejudices at the expense of the most marginalized in our society.

What do cities tell us about power? How does power shape cities? These are the main questions answered by a multidisciplinary set of eminent urban scholar in crisp articles on capital cities from around the world, from Buenos Aires to Tokyo, from Jakarta to Moscow. Focus is on contemporary cities and their manifestations and representations of power, though often with a historical grounding, and the collection also includes an example of archaeological urban analysis, from northern Mesopotamia. Through its variety of approaches by leading scholars of the field, and its variety of cities with their different histories and their diverse national contexts and political organization the book gives a uniquely insightful and easily accessible world overview of cities of power. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of Urban Sciences.

A compelling case for large-scale electoral reform. American democracy is at an impasse. After years of zero-sum partisan trench warfare, our political institutions are deteriorating. Our norms are collapsing. Democrats and Republicans no longer merely argue; they cut off contact with each other. In short, the two-party system is breaking our democracy, and driving us all crazy. Deftly weaving together history, democratic theory, and cutting edge political science research, Drutman tells the story of how American politics became so toxic, why the country is trapped in a doom loop of escalating two-party warfare, and why it is destroying the shared sense of fairness and legitimacy on which democracy depends. He argues that the only way out is to have more partisanship-more parties, to short-circuit the zero-sum nature of binary partisan conflict. American democracy was once stable because the two parties held within them multiple factions, which made it possible to assemble flexible majorities and kept the temperature of political combat from overheating. But as conservative Southern Democrats and liberal Northeastern Republicans disappeared, partisan conflict flattened and pulled apart. Once the parties fully separated, toxic partisanship took over. With the two parties divided over competing visions of national identity, Democrats and Republicans no longer see each other as opponents, but as enemies. And the more the conflict escalates, the shakier our democracy feels. Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop makes a compelling case for large-scale electoral reform-importantly, reform not requiring a constitutional amendment-that would give America more parties, making American democracy more representative, more responsive, and ultimately more stable.

Drawing on surveys of diverse social science faculty, three acclaimed scholars develop a rich and sometimes surprising portrait of who produces research, teaches students, and contributes to the business of higher education - and how, when, and why. In The Knowledge Polity, Paul A. Djupe, Amy Erica Smith, and Anand Edward Sokhey envision academics as members of a polity where the primary output is knowledge and citizenship comes with rights and responsibilities. Leveraging the 2017 Professional Activity in the Social Sciences (PASS) Study, they develop a theoretically and empirically rich account of who produces knowledge, and how. The data enable an unparalleled understanding of the nature and sources of inequalities by gender and racial or ethnic identification in the disciplines of sociology and political science in the US. To explain those inequalities, the authors consider academics as embedded in institutional and social contexts-including their home lives-and carefully consider their personalities and changing compositions of the academic workforce. A comprehensive and wide-ranging analysis, this book documents patterns that have long been shrouded in anecdote and enables scholars from across the social and behavioral sciences to make empirically-grounded decisions about their individual and collective futures.

At a time of radical shifts in power across the globe, the sixth edition of An Introduction to Political Communication examines the role of the media in the political process. Brian McNair reflects on the role of communication in key events such as the referendum vote for the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, the rise of nationalist populism in Europe, and the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election. He explores the use of communication as a weapon by Islamic State and other insurgent organisations, and by Putin's Russia in its dealings with the West, including the hacking of Democratic Party emails in 2016. McNair argues that an expanding globalised public sphere and digital media network have transformed political communication, allowing political actors, from politicians and pressure groups to trade unions and terrorist organisations, to bypass traditional, established media in communicating their messages. This sixth edition of McNair's classic text has been comprehensively revised and updated to include: the 2016 US presidential election and Donald Trump's rise to power; the UK's EU referendum of 2016, the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 and the 'snap' UK general election of June 2017; the growing role in political communication of the internet and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and their destabilising impact on the management of political crises all over the world including the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17 and the disappearance of MH370, the Tianjin disaster in China and the Russian intervention in Ukraine; Islamic State's global jihad, and the use of social media as an instrument of terror; the growing capacity of WikiLeaks and other online sources, such as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, to challenge elite control of information.

Turn on the television or sign in to social media during election season and chances are you'll see plenty of negative campaigning. For decades, conventional wisdom has held that Americans hate negativity in political advertising, and some have even argued that its pervasiveness in recent seasons has helped to drive down voter turnout. Arguing against this commonly held view, Kyle Mattes and David P. Redlawsk show not only that some negativity is accepted by voters as part of the political process, but that negative advertising is necessary to convey valuable information that would not otherwise be revealed.
The most comprehensive treatment of negative campaigning to date, "The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning" uses models, surveys, and experiments to show that much of the seeming dislike of negative campaigning can be explained by the way survey questions have been worded. By failing to distinguish between baseless and credible attacks, surveys fail to capture differences in voters' receptivity. Voters' responses, the authors argue, vary greatly and can be better explained by the content and believability of the ads than by whether the ads are negative. Mattes and Redlawsk continue on to establish how voters make use of negative information and why it is necessary. Many voters are politically naive and unlikely to make inferences about candidates' positions or traits, so the ability of candidates to go on the attack and focus explicitly on information that would not otherwise be available is crucial to voter education.

Campaign promises are a cornerstone of representative democracy. Candidates make promises to signal to voters their intentions in office and voters evaluate candidates based on those promises. This study unpacks the theorized pathway regarding campaign promises: not whether promises are kept, but what purpose promises serve, what they signal, and how they affect voter decision-making. The author explores the pathways and conditions influencing promises and finds that promises tend to have a polarizing effect on voters' opinions of politicians, attracting similarly-positioned voters and strongly repelling voters who disagree with a candidate's position. In addition, voters perceive promise breakers as less honest and less likely to follow through than candidates who more weakly took the same position. With a wealth of data and fascinating case studies, this book is full of important insights into electoral psychology and the study of promises, campaigning, and representation.

The phenomenon of post-truth poses a problem for the public policy-oriented sciences, including policy analysis. Along with "fake news," the post-truth denial of facts constitutes a major concern for numerous policy fields. Whereas a standard response is to call for more and better factual information, this Element shows that the effort to understand this phenomenon has to go beyond the emphasis on facts to include an understanding of the social meanings that get attached to facts in the political world of public policy. The challenge is thus seen to be as much about a politics of meaning as it is about epistemology. The analysis here supplements the examination of facts with an interpretive policy-analytic approach to gain a fuller understanding of post-truth. The importance of the interpretive perspective is illustrated by examining the policy arguments that have shaped policy controversies related to climate change and coronavirus denial.

A unique blend of graphic design, bold art or photography and cunning psychology, election posters are an unsung art form, stretching back to the dawn of the twentieth century. Exploiting the Conservative Party Archive held at the Bodleian Library which contains over 700 posters, this book charts the evolution of the Conservatives' election posters. Divided into chapters along political periods, the book highlights the changing fashions in and attitudes to advertising, political ideology, slogans, combativeness and above all, propriety. Each chapter includes a brief introduction discussing the major themes of the period as well as captions explaining specific issues related to the individual posters. Lavishly illustrated, 'Dole Queues to Demons' gives a fascinating insight into the issues and strategies of the Conservative Party throughout the twentieth century, and up to the present day. A foreword by advertising guru Maurice Saatchi discusses the posters from a communication and design perspective. This book will fascinate anyone interested in social and political history and modern communications. Published at a time when the advent of new media threatens to herald the end of traditional forms of mass communication, this book takes a timely retrospective look at this enduring feature of the British electoral landscape.

The fifth edition of Gender and Elections offers a lively, multi-faceted account of the role of gender in the electoral process through the 2020 elections. This timely yet enduring volume strikes a balance between highlighting the most important developments for women as voters and candidates in the 2020 elections and providing an in-depth analysis of the ways that gender has helped shape the contours and outcomes of electoral politics in the United States. Individual chapters demonstrate the importance of gender in understanding presidential, congressional, and state elections; voter participation, turnout, and choices; participation of African American women and Latinas; support of political parties and women's organizations; and candidate communication. New chapters explore the role of social movements in elections and introduce concepts of gendered and raced institutions, intersectionality, and identity politics applied to presidential elections from past to present. The resulting volume is the most comprehensive and reliable resource on the role of gender in electoral politics.

The fifth edition of Gender and Elections offers a lively, multi-faceted account of the role of gender in the electoral process through the 2020 elections. This timely yet enduring volume strikes a balance between highlighting the most important developments for women as voters and candidates in the 2020 elections and providing an in-depth analysis of the ways that gender has helped shape the contours and outcomes of electoral politics in the United States. Individual chapters demonstrate the importance of gender in understanding presidential, congressional, and state elections; voter participation, turnout, and choices; participation of African American women and Latinas; support of political parties and women's organizations; and candidate communication. New chapters explore the role of social movements in elections and introduce concepts of gendered and raced institutions, intersectionality, and identity politics applied to presidential elections from past to present. The resulting volume is the most comprehensive and reliable resource on the role of gender in electoral politics.

Populism is on the rise in Europe and the Americas. Scholars increasingly understand populist forces in terms of their ideas or discourse, one that envisions a cosmic struggle between the will of the common people and a conspiring elite. In this volume, we advance populism scholarship by proposing a causal theory and methodological guidelines - a research program - based on this ideational approach. This program argues that populism exists as a set of widespread attitudes among ordinary citizens, and that these attitudes lie dormant until activated by weak democratic governance and policy failure. It offers methodological guidelines for scholars seeking to measure populist ideas and test their effects. And, to ground the program empirically, it tests this theory at multiple levels of analysis using original data on populist discourse across European and US party systems; case studies of populist forces in Europe, Latin America, and the US; survey data from Europe and Latin America; and experiments in Chile, the US, and the UK. The result is a truly systematic, comparative approach that helps answer questions about the causes and effects of populism.

How can we promote people-centered governance in Africa? Cell phones/ information and communications technology (ICT) are shown to be linked to neoliberal understandings of more democratic governance structures, defined by the Worldwide Governance Indicators as: the rule of law, corruption-control, regulation quality, government effectiveness, political stability/no violence, and voice and accountability. However, these indicators fall short: they do note emphasize gender equity or pro-poor policies. Writing from an African feminist scholar-activist perspective, Assata Zerai emphasizes the voices of women in two ways: (1) she examines how women's access to ICT makes a difference to the success of people-centered governance structures; and (2) she demonstrates how African women's scholarship, too often marginalized, must be used to expand and redefine the goals and indicators of democratice governance in African countries. Challenging the status quo that praises the contributions of cell phones to the diffusion of knowledge and resultant better governance in Africa, this book is an important read for scholars of politics and technology, gender and politics, and African Studies.

In June 2016, the United Kingdom shocked the world by voting to leave the European Union. As this book reveals, the historic vote for Brexit marked the culmination of trends in domestic politics and in the UK's relationship with the EU that have been building over many years. Drawing on a wealth of survey evidence collected over more than ten years, this book explains why most people decided to ignore much of the national and international community and vote for Brexit. Drawing on past research on voting in major referendums in Europe and elsewhere, a team of leading academic experts analyse changes in the UK's party system that were catalysts for the referendum vote, including the rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the dynamics of public opinion during an unforgettable and divisive referendum campaign, the factors that influenced how people voted and the likely economic and political impact of this historic decision.

A critical cultural materialist introduction to the study of global entertainment media. In Global Entertainment Media, Tanner Mirrlees undertakes an analysis of the ownership, production, distribution, marketing, exhibition and consumption of global films and television shows, with an eye to political economy and cultural studies. Among other topics, Mirrlees examines: Paradigms of global entertainment media such as cultural imperialism and cultural globalization. The business of entertainment media: the structure of capitalist culture/creative industries (financers, producers, distributors and exhibitors) and trends in the global political economy of entertainment media. The "governance" of global entertainment media: state and inter-state media and cultural policies and regulations that govern the production, distribution and exhibition of entertainment media and enable or impede its cross-border flow. The new international division of cultural labor (NICL): the cross-border production of entertainment by cultural workers in asymmetrically interdependent media capitals, and economic and cultural concerns surrounding runaway productions and co-productions. The economic motivations and textual design features of globally popular entertainment forms such as blockbuster event films, TV formats, glocalized lifestyle brands and synergistic media. The cross-cultural reception and effects of TV shows and films. The World Wide Web, digitization and convergence culture.

Over time and across Western democracies, the media has become increasingly influential, and a great deal more political processes have become altered, shaped or structured by the media and the perceived need of individuals, organizations and social systems to communicate with or through the media. The key theoretical perspective to understand this process is mediatization. As a long-term process which has increased the importance of the media and their spill-over effects on political processes, institutions, organizations and actors, mediatization is one of the most important processes reshaping politics and transforming democracies across the Western world. While the theoretical perspective of mediatization has become increasingly popular in recent years, scholarly understanding of the mediatization process and its antecedents, consequences and contingencies are still hampered by unresolved questions and a lack of systematic empirical studies. This volume addresses this by bringing together contributions that analyze and investigate different facets of the mediatization of politics, making a significant contribution to our theoretical as well as empirical understanding of this process, and setting the agenda for further research. This book was originally published as two special issues, of Journalism Studies and Journalism Practice.

Issues of defence politics and policy have long been at the forefront of political agendas and defining of international affairs. With a focus on examining the fundamental sources of - and defence policy responses to - the new 'post-9/11' security environment, this volume offers an up-to-date, balanced and comprehensive overview of defence politics worldwide, with chapters written by an international team of defence experts. Part 1: International Dimensions. Chapters examine the changing conception of self-defence, security collaboration for combating terrorism, the United Nations and peacekeeping, NATO and security in Europe, as well as the use of new media in the modern asymmetric warfare environment. Part 2: Regional and Domestic Perspectives. Country and region-sepcific case studies analyse defence politics in detail, including chapers on Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and many countries in these regions. Part 3: US Dimensions. In-depth analysis of US issues, including defence policy making, the evolution of land warfare doctrine, defence consolidation and the politics and strategy of military intervention in the Muslim world. Part 4: The Future of Defence Politics and Policy. Dealing with issues including international humanitarian law and military intervention, nuclear weapons in Asia and compound security dilemmas, these chapters look at the future of defence policy-making. Maps. The supplement the analysis contained in the chapters, a section of maps offers further information for ease of use. Edited by Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III and James J. F. Forest of the US Military Academy, West Point, USA, This Handbook of Defence Politics aims to provide a unique, authoritative and central resource on the most important issues surrounding the politics of defence. The book will be an invaluable reference tool for academics, researchers in international relations, policymakers and government officials.

It is widely accepted that the machinery of multicultural societies and liberal democratic systems is dependent upon various forms of dialogue - dialogue between political parties, between different social groups, between the ruling and the ruled. But what are the conditions of a democratic dialogue and how does the philosophical dialogic approach apply to practice? Recently, facing challenges from mass protest movements across the globe, liberal democracy has found itself in urgent need of a solution to the problem of translating mass activity into dialogue, as well as that of designing borders of dialogue. Exploring the multifaceted nature of the concepts of dialogue and democracy, and critically examining materializations of dialogue in social life, this book offers a variety of perspectives on the theoretical and empirical interface between democracy and dialogue. Bringing together the latest work from scholars across Europe, Democracy in Dialogue, Dialogue in Democracy offers fresh theorizations of the role of dialogue in democratic thought and practice and will appeal to scholars of sociology, political science and social and political theory.

This Element develops an analytical framework for understanding the role of ideas in political life and communication. Power in Ideas argues that the empirical study of ideas should combine interpretive approaches to derive meaning and understand influence with quantitative analysis to help determine the reach, spread, and impact of ideas. This Element illustrates this approach through three case studies: the idea of reparations in Ta-Nehisi Coates's "The Case for Reparations," the idea of free expression in Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook policy speech at Georgetown University, and the idea of universal basic income in Andrew Yang's "Freedom Dividend." Power in Ideas traces the landscapes and spheres within which these ideas emerged and were articulated, the ways they were encoded in discourse, the fields they traveled across, and how they became powerful.

"Compelling." The Guardian "An insightful and inspiring history." BBC History Magazine "A tantalising revelatory book." The House "Brisk and illuminating." Times Literary Supplement "A damn good read." Morning Star "Wonderful." The Chartist Uncontrollable Women is a history of radical, reformist and revolutionary women between the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and the passing of the Great Reform Act in 1832. Very few of them are well-known today; some were unknown even in their own day. All of them contributed something to the world we now inhabit. At a time when women were supposed to leave politics to men they spoke, wrote, marched, organised, asked questions, challenged power structures, sometimes went to prison and even died. History has not usually been kind to them, and they have frequently been pushed into asides or footnotes, dismissed as secondary, or spoken over, for, or through by men and sometimes other women. In this book, they take centre stage in both their own stories and those of others, and in doing so bring different voices to the more familiar accounts of the period. These women and many others played a part in developing political ideas and freedoms as we know them today, and some fought battles which still remain to be won or raised questions that are still unresolved. These are their stories.

Since its founding in 1945, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood has enjoyed decades of almost continuous parliamentary presence and state acceptance in Jordan, participating in elections, organising events and even establishing a hospital. In this detailed account of the Muslim Brotherhood's ideological and behavioural development in Jordan, Joas Wagemakers focusses on the group's long history and complex relationship with the state, its parliament and society. It shows how age-old concepts derived from classical Islam and the writings of global Islamist scholars have been used and reused by modern-day Jordanian Islamists to shape their beliefs in the context of the present-day nation-state. Far from its reputation as a two-faced global conspiracy bent on conquering the West, the Muslim Brotherhood is a deeply divided group that has nevertheless maintained a fascinating internal ideological consistency in its use of similar religious concepts. As such, it is part of, and continues to build on, trends in Muslim thought that go back hundreds of years.

This book examines the psychology behind micro-targeted tactics used in election campaigning and the advent of increasingly sophisticated dynamic Agent-Based Models (ABMs). It discusses individual profiling, how data and modelling are deployed to enhance the effectiveness of persuasion and mobilization efforts in campaigns, and the potential limitations of these approaches. Madsen particularly explores how psychological insight and personal data are used to generate individualised models of voters and how these in turn are applied to optimise persuasion strategies tailored to a specific person. Finally, the book considers the broader democratic dilemmas raised by the introduction of these tactics into politics and the critical civic importance of understanding how these campaigns function.This timely work offers fresh insights for students and scholars of political psychology, philosophy, political marketing, media, and communications.

This edited volume maps the development of the use of political campaigning and marketing techniques in countries of the former Communist Bloc over the last thirty years. Focusing on the shift from propaganda to political marketing, and from manipulation to persuasion, the book consists of a series of case studies of countries in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and the Balkans that outline the history, development and current state of political marketing in each country. The authors explore political parties and their behaviour ahead of elections, and show the changes in political culture and practices that parties have undergone in order to create more or less successful campaigns.