Raising the tone? The impact of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ campaigning on voting in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election

Abstract

Most research on campaign effects in British elections has focussed on exposure to the campaign. Far less attention has been given to how the campaign is perceived, although American research on the effects of negative campaigning suggests that this is a potentially important area. The article investigates the extent to which vote choices in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election were affected by perceptions of the parties' campaigns as 'positive' or 'negative'. Partisanship and increased exposure to a party's campaign increased individuals' chances of rating a campaign positively. Other things being equal, however, campaigns which come to be seen in a negative light backfire on the party responsible, reducing the propensity of people to vote for it.

The Mobilizing Effect of Parties' Moral Rhetoric

“…This observation is particularly relevant for party research since parties would want to activate positive emotions among their base, considering the backfiring effects of negative campaigning that previous research has identified (Banda and Windett ; Dowling and Wichowsky ; Pattie et al. ).…”

“…Morality does not have to entail negative emotions, and there is much reason to explore its positive emotional consequences (see also Haidt 2003a;Tangney, Stuewig, and Mashek 2007). This observation is particularly relevant for party research since parties would want to activate positive emotions among their base, considering the backfiring effects of negative campaigning that previous research has identified (Banda and Windett 2016;Dowling and Wichowsky 2015;Pattie et al 2011).…”

Shaping the Scope of Conflict in Scotland’s Fracking Debate: Conflict Management and the Narrative Policy Framework

“…Hence, actors’ differential use of characterizations may ultimately derive from a strategic decision to adopt a negative or positive campaign tone in a policy conflict (Schlaufer, , p. 107). There is a large body of extant research on messaging in electoral campaigns (Fridkin & Kenney, ; Pattie, Denver, Johns, & Mitchell, ), but actors in ongoing policy disputes are equally likely to deliberately shape their narratives to maximize the impact. I will therefore use the notion of negative and positive campaign tone as shorthand for the relative strength of the devil or angel shift.…”

Politics, sentiments, and misinformation: An analysis of the Twitter discussion on the 2016 Austrian Presidential Elections

“…Even though this campaigning strategy prospectively contributed to the success of the Republican candidate (Donald Trump), there is evidence that negative campaigning is risky and might backfire, leading to undesired effects (e.g. by making a candidate less likeable, see [PDJM11]). As part of our study, we examined cases of negative campaigning found in our data-set (including the spread of misinformation and rumors) and the effects on the candidates' followers.…”