The language of emotion in televised political advertising: Presidential spots, 1960--1996.

Abstract

Through computerized lexical analysis of 1,209 televised political commercials aired by the Democratic and Republican party's presidential nominees during general elections from 1960 to 1996, this study discerns which words thought to elicit emotional responses from audiences are present in these political messages. Quantifying the verbal content of these ads, using DICTION 4.0, yields substantive data about the nature of emotional appeals in televised political advertising. Findings reveal that the use of emotion-evoking language, a continual feature of presidential campaign commercials, has decreased since 1960. Findings also suggest that 50% of the political spots analyzed are characteristic of Agres' wheel of emotions. Results indicate significant differences between the use of emotional language in televised political advertising and whether a candidate for president of the United States is a challenger or an incumbent, whether an ad is positive or negative in tone, and whether an ad is issue or image focused.