Do campagin "attack advertisements" work?

Question

Is their purpose to:

1. Inform or

2. Mislead or

3. Confuse the Issues

Answer 1

According to one of my political science professor the answer is yes. He said that it has been researched in focus groups and they have been shown to be the most effective at creating a positive opinion of the candidate doing the attacking. I, myself, have not looked at said focus group studies but I can see no reason why this professor (well instructor technically speaking given that he's a grad student) would make this up.

As for their purpose I would say that it depends on your own perspective and bias. If you see an ad attacking Barack Obama on his tax policies and you're an Obama supporter you would say that the ad is intentionally misleading people. But if you don't think that the middle and working classes should be the only ones receiving tax cuts when wealthier people and large highly profitable corporations get their Bush tax cuts revoked (as is Obama's policy) you would say that the ad is accurate and informative.

The opposite is, of course true... if you see an ad claiming that McCain's policies amount to four more years of Bush and you're an Obama supporter you would agree since you know that McCain has voted in accordance with Bush's stated opinion 90% of the time in the last 8 years. However, if you're a McCain supporter you would say that the ad is misleading because you know that McCain has gone against the GOP on a number of occasions and that his election platform contains many policies that are at odds with Bush policies.

1. Inform or

2. Mislead or

3. Confuse the Issues

These are normative statements, not empirical ones.

As for undecided voters I would guess that they would feel that an attack ad is "politics as usual" and dismiss it. Attack ads probably work better to energize a candidate's base of support instead of convince those on the fence. I could be wrong though, attack ads may very well help to confirm an undecided voter's suspicions about a candidate that make them unsure who to vote for (a republican that isn't too keen on McCain might see the aforementioned anti Obama ad and say, "gee, McCain isn't really as conservative as I would like him to be but at least he won't raise taxes")

Answer 2

Attack advertisements, as harsh as they may seem, work!!!! There purpose is to persuade the viewer to believe in their issues and make the other candidate seem like a bad guy.  Sometimes they can be misleading.