Campaigning for Hearts and Minds

“Ted Brader has written an illuminating analysis of the emotional basis of political advertising and the strategic calculus guiding politicians’ use of ads appealing to enthusiasm and fear. His counterintuitive research findings overturn conventional wisdom and show that positive ads can polarize and negative can inform.”--Samuel L. Popkin, author of The Reasoning Voter

“Written in an accessible and engaging style, Campaigning for Hearts and Minds exposes the gap between political practice, in which emotional appeals in advertising are commonplace, and political science, which, in its fascination with cognition, content, and strategic reasoning, has all but neglected them. This book tests, for the first time, basic propositions about how emotional appeals affect voters’ preferences and behavior. It reminds us of the practical significance of social science and of the theoretical significance of solid experimental results.”--Donald Green, coauthor of Partisan Hearts and Minds

“Brader brings experimental methods to the study of television political campaign ads for real candidates in a real election campaign. His detailed exploration uncovers a rich array of findings that challenges many conventional beliefs about how campaign ads impact voters. Campaigning for Hearts and Minds is a rich, lucid exploration of many old and new accounts that makes an important and timely contribution for scholars and practitioners alike.”--George E. Marcus, author of The Sentimental Citizen

“A terrific book. Brader takes contemporary political psychology to campaign ads and discovers something novel in the process. Emotions matter—but not in the ways we commonly suppose. Brader’s book breaks our reliance on that easy understanding and forces us to think more consciously about how images, emotions, cognitions, and political choices are bound together.”--Michael MacKuen, coauthor of Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment

“Brader examines the role emotion plays in political commercials in Campaigning for Hearts and Minds. [He] finds that although some campaign television spots, such as LBJ’s 1964 ‘Daisy Girl’ ad, aimed to strike fear into people and thus influence their vote, there are also subtle and less manipulative ways emotions are used in politics. . . . Based on his own and other studies, Brader writes that anxiety produced by ads that incite fear is a motivating force in politics. And while negative ads, ones that critique, smear, or strike fear into voters are often perceived as a bad element of politics, they are often persuasive. Brader argues that playing on viewers’ feelings will help to reinvigorate campaigns and politics as a whole.”

“Brader guides the reader through the study of political advertising and makes the case that although many studies have been done, few have systematically analyzed the role of emotion in political campaigns. The author seeks to close this gap through the content analysis of more than 1,400 political ads and an experimental investigation of the effect different type of ads have upon citizens. His work is both timely and original. The findings suggest that negatively charged ads cause citizens to conduct more research on their own. Enthusiastic appeals work to motivate committed voters to political action on behalf of their candidate.”