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 naïve 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.

Negative campaigning is frequently denounced, but it is not well understood. Who conducts negative campaigns? Do they work? What is their effect on voter turnout and attitudes toward government? Just in time for an assessment of election 2004, two distinguished political scientists bring us a sophisticated analysis of negative campaigns for the Senate from 1992 to 2002. The results of their study are surprising and challenge conventional wisdom: negative campaigning has dominated relatively few elections over the past dozen years, there is little evidence that it has had a deleterious effect on our political system, and it is not a particularly effective campaign strategy. These analyses bring novel empirical techniques to the study of basic normative questions of democratic theory and practice.

Going Dirty is a history of negative campaigning in American politics and an examination of how candidates and political consultants have employed this often-controversial technique. The book includes case studies on notable races throughout the television era in which new negative campaign strategies were introduced, or existing tactics were refined and amplified upon.

Have you ever seen a politician fiercely attacking his opponent? Sure you have. Election campaigns without attacks on the rival candidate's performance, policy propositions and traits simply do not exist. Negative campaigning makes up a substantial part of election campaigns around the world. Though heavily covered in election news, the practice is strongly disliked by political pundits, journalists and voters. Some are even concerned that negative campaigning damages democracy itself. Negative campaigning has inspired numerous scholars in recent decades. But much of the existing research examines the phenomenon only in the United States, and scholars disagree on how the practice should be defined and measured, which has resulted in open-ended conclusions about its causes and effects. This unique volume presents for the first time work examining negative campaigning in the US, Europe and beyond. It presents systematic literature overviews and new work that touches upon three fundamental questions: What is negative campaigning and can we measure it? What causes negative campaigning? And what are its effects?

This interesting and timely volume explores the effectiveness of negative campaign ads, whether or not negative campaigning has value, the effectiveness of fact-checking, and what fuels negative campaigning. Includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives; eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials, and many others.

Negative campaigning is a central component of politics in the United States. Yet, until now, demonstrating the impact of combative advertising on voters has been elusive. How can we reconcile the findings of a plethora of studies with the methods of politicians? This book cuts through to the central issue: how negative advertising influences voters' attitudes and actions. Focusing on U.S. senatorial campaigns, Kim Fridkin and Patrick Kenney draw from surveys, experiments, facial expression analysis, content analyses, and focus groups. They develop the "tolerance and tactics theory of negativity" that marries citizens' tolerance for negativity with campaign messages varying in their civility and relevance and demonstrate how citizens' beliefs and behaviors are affected. Using this original framework, they find harsh and relevant messages influence voters' decisions, especially for people with less tolerance for negativity. And, irrelevant and uncivil advertisements demobilize voters, with low tolerance individuals affected most sharply.

The past two decades have seen an explosion of social science research on negative political advertising as the number of political observers complaining about its use--if not negative campaigning itself--has also grown dramatically. This article reviews the literature on negative campaigning--what candidates are most likely to attack their opponent, under what circumstances, and most importantly, to what effect. We also discuss the many serious methodological issues that make studying media effects of any kind so difficult, and make suggestions for “best practices” in conducting media research. Contrary to popular belief, there is little scientific evidence that attacking one's opponent is a particularly effective campaign technique, or that it has deleterious effects on our system of government. We conclude with a discussion of whether negative political advertising is bad for democracy.

Americans have a love-hate relationship with negative campaigning, claiming to despise it and ranting about how it turns off the electorate, while at the same time paying an increasing amount of attention to negative ads and tactics during ever-lengthening campaign seasons. Swint gathers the most compelling of these campaigns from the two Golden Ages of negative campaigning—1864 to 1892 and 1988 to the present—in addition to some that fall outside those demarcations, and ranks them in descending order, from No. 25 to No. 1. Mudslingers covers presidential, senatorial, gubernatorial, and mayoral races and chronicles the dirtiest, most low-down campaign tactics of all time. The list includes the presidential campaign of 1800, when the disputed outcome of the race between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had to be decided by the House of Representatives, and the election of 2004, in which George W. Bush beat John Kerry after one of the nastiest showdowns on record. The first round of negative campaigning in American history was driven by post-Civil War politics, the end of Reconstruction, an increasingly corrupt federal government, and a rabid partisan press. The current Golden Age of mudslinging and dirty politics is driven by huge increases in campaign spending, television advertising, decreased civility in public life, and a muckraking mass media. These fascinating stories from the annals of negative campaigning will entertain as well as educate, reminding us, the next time we are tempted to decry the current climate, that it was (almost) ever thus.

One of the most closely-watched and controversial aspects of modern political campaigning is the use of negative, attack tactics. This book examines the role played by negative campaigning through a national survey of professional political consultants. Campaign consultants have become vitally important to political candidates in recent years as strategists, fundraisers, and media specialists. The research in this book focuses on how consultants define negative campaigning, including the differences between issue attacks and character attacks, how and when criticism of the opponent should be implemented, and which media should be used to deliver attack messages. A statistical analysis of the survey data reveals insights into behavioral and professional differences among consultants with regard to party affiliation, gender, age, and level of experience.

In Critical Thinking: An Appeal to Reason, Peg Tittle empowers students with a solid grounding in the lifelong skills of considered analysis and argumentation that should underpin every student’s education. Starting with the building blocks of a good argument, this comprehensive new textbook offers a full course in critical thinking. It includes chapters on the nature and structure of argument, the role of relevance, truth and generalizations, and the subtleties of verbal and visual language. Special features include: • an emphasis on the constructive aspect of critical thinking—strengthening the arguments of others and constructing sound arguments of your own—rather than an exclusive focus on spotting faulty arguments • actual questions from standardized reasoning tests like the LSAT, GMAT, MCAT, and GRE • graduated end-of-chapter exercises, asking students to think critically about what they see, hear, read, write, and discuss • numerous sample arguments from books, magazines, television, and the Internet for students to analyze • many images for critical analysis • analyzed arguments that help students to read critically and actively • an extensive companion website for instructors and students A companion website features: • for instructors: an extensive instructor’s manual; a test bank; and PowerPoint slides • for students: extended answers, explanations, and analyses for the exercises and arguments in the book; supplementary chapters on logic and ethics; downloadable MP3 study guides; interactive flash cards; and thinking critically audio exercises. www.routledge.com/textbooks/tittle