Gender Differences and Negative Political Advertising

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine negative political advertisements to determine if gender influenced the content of the ads. Over 600 political advertisements from the 2002 election cycle were coded for content. A content analysis was done of the advertisements to determine whether there were differences in negative advertisements that could be attributed to gender. Gender does appear to influence the content of negative political advertisements. Female candidates are more likely to focus on policy related issues, and male candidates are more apt to focus on personal issues. However, both male and female candidates will use contrast ads to present negative information about the opponent while providing positive information about their own campaign. While it does appear that humor is used more often by male candidates, this finding is not statistically significant and should be studied further at a later date.