Negative campaigning is a central concept in political communication research. However, most conceptualizations of the term are rather broad, summarizing all kinds of negativity such as substantial criticism and offensive behaviors. In this paper, we distinguish negative, dirty, and positive campaigning. While negative campaigning refers to critical, civil, and non-disrespectful arguments, dirty campaigning, by contrast, is defined as "below-thebelt" attacks including incivility and unfair campaign methods. In a two-wave Austrian national election panel study, we tested the reciprocal effects of perceived negative, dirty, and positive campaigning on distrust in politicians. Using auto-regressive models, we found that perceived dirty campaigning positively predicted distrust in politicians over time. Furthermore, distrust in politicians led to increased perceptions of dirty campaigning over time, suggesting a reciprocal relationship. However, perceived negative and positive campaigning were unrelated to distrust in politicians. Theoretical and methodological implications of distinguishing negative, dirty, and positive campaigning are discussed.Criticism is a central element of political campaigns. It allows political parties and candidates to emphasize unfavorable aspects of political opponents that otherwise might have been undisclosed (Lau & Pomper, 2004;Nai & Walter, 2015). Also, criticism in campaigns can provide valuable information for citizens and lead to more informed voting decisions. However, some forms of criticism can also impair citizens' political attitudes, increase public disengagement, and eventually harm the quality of democracy (

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Uncivil campaigning and deceitful campaign techniques are increasingly relevant phenomena in politics. However, it remains unclear how they share an underlying component and how partisanship can influence their associations with democratic outcomes. We introduce the concept of dirty campaigning, which is situated at the intersection of research on negative campaigning and political scandals. Dirty campaigning involves violations of social norms and liberal-democratic values between elite political actors in terms of style and practices, such as uncivil campaigning and deceitful campaign techniques. In a two-wave panel study (<em>N</em> = 634) during the 2021 German federal election campaign, we investigate the associations of perceived dirty campaigning by the least and most favorite party with distrust in politicians, trust in democracy, attitudes toward dirty campaigning regulation, as well as perceived harmful consequences of dirty campaigning for democracy. We find that perceived dirty campaigning by the least favorite party increases perceptions of harmful consequences of dirty campaigning for democracy over time. In contrast, perceived dirty campaigning by the most favorite party decreases perceptions of harmful consequences of dirty campaigning for democracy as well as attitudes toward dirty campaigning regulation over time. Perceptions of harmful consequences of dirty campaigning for democracy increase distrust in politicians over time and vice versa. Our findings suggest that the outcomes of dirty campaigning can depend on partisanship and can have important implications for the quality of democracy.

There are rising concerns that social network sites (SNS) facilitate the creation of echo chambers, in which attitude-consistent information becomes the norm while attitude-challenging information is avoided. This study aims to investigate theoretically derived predictors of attitude-consistent and attitude-challenging exposure on SNS. We theorize that three key sets of predictors may influence attitude-consistent and attitude-challenging exposure: ideology, cognitive, and behavioral indicators of political involvement, and network characteristics. In a two-wave panel study, we predict the frequency of attitude-consistent and attitude-challenging exposure as well as relative attitude-consistent exposure, measured as attitude-consistent exposure as a share of overall opinion exposure. The results demonstrate that extreme ideological positions, higher political knowledge, and low-effort political participation predicted an increase in (relative) attitude-consistent exposure. Cross-social class exposure predicted a decrease in (relative) attitude-consistent exposure. The findings challenge existing arguments that SNS may per se facilitate attitude-consistent exposure.