Project Goals

In this study we seek to provide a degree of insight into the effectiveness of the Swift Boat advertisements in diminishing support for John Kerry's presidential bid. We start by recognizing the constraints of our methods. As with any form of internet research, there are substantial limitations on the ability to draw inferences about large populations such as the American electorate. Therefore, we make no claims that our study accurately predicts the specific impact on voter behavior. Instead, we simply seek to see how a group of voters that broadly reflects the key characteristics of the voting population reacts to political advertisement through pre- and post-test observations. In essence, we hope to fill a gap in the current approaches to studying advertisement effectiveness

Today, media outlets regularly employ focus groups to review advertisements and report on the reaction of a small pool of voters. As with any focus groups, the details drawn from respondents may be insightful but not generalizable. Similarly, standard RDD surveys of voter impressions of advertisements may produce generalizable findings, but they are limited by voters' access to the ads and their ability to recall details. While our approach to evaluating advertisement effectiveness has its own limitations, we believe that it does address some of the weaknesses of the standard approaches.

First, the use of a web-based format allows us to reach a fairly large group of respondents with an instrument that provides for access to the actual advertisements. Second, the collection of respondent data takes place in the same time frame that the advertisement is airing. This is crucial if we are to capture the impact of the advertisement while controlling for other possible external factors that may be simultaneously acting upon the respondent. Finally, through the use of computer-based implementation of the survey, we can utilize technology to track voter reactions to advertisements on a second-by-second basis.

Given these strengths and weaknesses of our methodological approach, we seek to accomplish the following:

•  To measure voter reaction to political advertisements in the 2004 presidential election campaign through a quasi-experimental design.

•  To capture voter reactions to political advertisements during the time frame that they are being originally run.

•  To measure the effect of political advertisements on changing voter preferences.