The Long-Term and Geographically Constrained Effects of Campaign Advertising on Political Polarization and Sorting

• Date: 01 January 2018
• Author: Kenneth Goldstein,Michael M. Franz,Erika Franklin Fowler,Travis N. Ridout
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X17721479
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X17721479

American Politics Research

2018, Vol. 46(1) 3 –25

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X17721479

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Article

The Long-Term

and Geographically

Constrained Effects of

Campaign Advertising on

Political Polarization and

Sorting

Travis N. Ridout1, Erika Franklin Fowler2,

Michael M. Franz3, and Kenneth Goldstein4

Abstract

Scholars agree that there has been an increase in polarization among

political elites, though there continues to be debate on the extent to which

polarization exists among the mass public. Still, there is general agreement

that the American public has become more sorted over the past two decades,

a time during which political ad volumes have increased and ads have become

more negative. In this research, we explore whether there is a link between

the two. We take advantage of variation in the volume and tone of political

advertising across media markets to examine the link between advertising

and three dependent variables: issue polarization, affective polarization, and

sorting. We focus on the impact of both recent ad exposure and cumulative

ad exposure across several election cycles. Ultimately, we find little impact

of advertising on polarization or sorting, both overall and among subgroups

of the population.

1Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

2Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA

3Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA

4University of San Francisco, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Travis N. Ridout, Department of Political Science, Washington State University, 816 Johnson

Tower, Troy Lane, Pullman, WA 99164-4880, USA.

Email: tnridout@wsu.edu

721479APRXXX10.1177/1532673X17721479American Politics ResearchRidout et al.

research-article2017

4 American Politics Research 46(1)

Keywords

political advertising, polarization, negative campaigns, sorting

There is a solid consensus among scholars and other observers of modern

American politics that there has been an increase in polarization among polit-

ical elites (Bond & Fleisher, 2000; Hetherington, 2001; McCarty, Poole, &

Rosenthal, 2016). For example, when it comes to Congress, there are virtu-

ally no liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats and very few mem-

bers, no matter the scoring methodology employed, falling in the middle of

the ideological distribution of the body. By contrast, there has been extensive

debate among scholars on the extent and, even, the existence of polarization

among the mass public (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2008; Fiorina & Abrams,

2008). Even though the debate about polarization in the mass public has

occasionally turned a tad acrimonious, there is general agreement that the

American public has become more sorted. Liberals and conservatives alike

are increasingly aligning themselves with the “correct” party.

Similarly, when it comes to the study of political advertising, there are

areas of scholarly agreement and disagreement. Over the past couple of

decades, although scholars have agreed that levels of negativity in campaign

advertising have risen, they have disagreed on the impact that advertising has

had on a variety of democratic outcomes, including voter turnout. In other

words, although there has been scholarly disagreement about the effect of

advertising, in general, and of so-called negative advertising on political par-

ticipation (Ansolabehere, Iyengar, Simon, & Valentino, 1994; Jackson,

Mondak, & Huckfeldt, 2009; Krupnikov, 2012), in particular, there is agree-

ment on the fact that the volume of advertising has increased and its tone has

turned more negative (Fowler, Franz, & Ridout, 2016; Geer, 2006).

Without wading into the particular areas of disagreement in each of these

prominent fields in political science, we explore whether there is a link

between the two. We explore whether the tone and intensity of political

advertising, often blamed for many of the ills that plague American democ-

racy, has had an impact on the potential polarization and certain sorting that

has occurred among the mass public.

From a research design perspective, establishing a link between the two

trends is difficult; that two trends increase over time could be explained by a

variety of factors. Fortunately, however, there is a way to gain some leverage

on the question of whether there is a link between campaign negativity and

mass polarization. Namely, because most political advertising is purchased at

the level of the media market, there is both substantial geographic variation

in the volume of advertising to which people are exposed and the tone of that