What Does a Negative Political Ad Really Say? The Effects of Different Content Dimensions

This article investigates the effects of negative political advertising, focusing particularly on three ad dimensions: appeal content; appeal importance; and the presence of evidence. Results indicate that when negative ads do not provide evidence, unimportant appeals benefit the ad sponsor more than important appeals, regardless of whether the appeal centers on issues or images. However, when attack ads provide appeals-related evidence, significant interactive effects emerge between appeal content and appeal importance. With image-related appeals, unimportant appeals generate more harm for the target but less for the sponsor compared with important ones. In contrast, when appealing to issues, important appeals are more advantageous for the sponsor. The authors discuss the implications of these and other findings.