Claremont McKenna College Professor Publishes Research on Impact of Campaign Advertisements

CLAREMONT—A new research paper by Claremont McKenna College Professor Cameron Shelton shows that televised campaign advertising increases the probability that viewers who identify with a particular political party will embrace its positions, prefer its candidates, and turn out to vote.

“If a Republican candidate shows an advertisement to Republican voters, they would be more likely to vote Republican after watching the ad,” said Shelton, whose research “Mobilization and Backlash: Asymmetric Updating in Response to Campaign Ads” will be published in the forthcoming Review of Economics and Statistics. “However, if the Republican candidate showed their ad to a Democrat, the voter would be emboldened to vote Democrat.”

Shelton explained that this dynamic is referred to as “mobilization and backlash.”

“Campaign ads have the power to confirm biases on both ends of the political spectrum,” he said. “As a result, a political party gains very little by showing an ad to a politically balanced audience.”

The report examined the impact of 5.68 million television advertisements from the 2012 and 2016 federal election cycles on election results.

Shelton, a leading economist who is director of the Lowe Institute of Political Economy at Claremont McKenna, found that the powerful net effects of mobilization and backlash confirm biases, leading to a balanced dynamic among voters.

“This clearly demonstrates the potential benefits of targeting in the context of television viewing,” he said. “In today’s world, political advertising focuses on the delivery via social media of spots that are micro-targeted according to age, gender, ethnicity, zip code, and browsing habits, which typically highlight party affiliation.”

However, he added that additional research has found that social media advertising comes with disadvantages, which includes dismissal of unwanted information, as opposed to the relatively passive, focused attention given to TV. Streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Video, whose content is consumed in a manner similar to television, have collected a great deal of information about their customers and are exploring targeted advertising.

“Work by other researchers has shown that social media, while doing a great job of targeting, does not actually have strong effects when it comes to encouraging voting,” said Shelton. “If partisanship is so easily cued by political advertisements, my results might seem to suggest such ads as a source of polarization. Ultimately, targeted ads in streaming is likely the way to go—and designing an ad that mobilizes a base, while not incurring the backlash effect would be key for political operatives.”

About Cameron Shelton:
Shelton received his Ph.D. in Political Economy from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2005. He arrived at Claremont McKenna College in 2008. His research interests focus on empirical political economy and persuasion in a political context. He currently teaches a senior tutorial in economics as part of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program and an upper division course in political economy.

About Claremont McKenna College:
Claremont McKenna College is a private, 1,300-student residential liberal arts college located east of Los Angeles in Southern California. Since 1946, the College’s mission has been to prepare students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership in business, government, and the professions. Renowned for its Open Academy commitments to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and constructive dialogue, as well as expertise in economics and government, Claremont McKenna also features an accomplished faculty of scholars and committed teachers in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Students are drawn to the College’s unparalleled offerings, including: 11 research institutes and centers; the ability to conduct research one-on-one with faculty; and access to leaders, artists, and visionaries who engage with students at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum. Claremont McKenna is a member of The Claremont Colleges. For more information, visit https://www.cmc.edu/.