September 22, 2007
Blog Comments Become Fodder for Attack Ads on TV
TV ad points to a new form of negative campaigning in which information is sourced to comments posted on the Internet instead of news reports or public records. The Washington Post reports.
"Del. Timothy D. Hugo, a Republican state legislator from Fairfax County has launched an attack ad on cable TV against his Democratic opponent that features unidentified, unverified quotes from a blog.
Hugo's ad highlights critical comments about his Democratic opponent, Rex Simmons, that someone with the screen name "Pitin" posted on the Democratic blog Raising Kaine.
Ads that quote from blogs, on which it is often difficult to identify the author, represent a benchmark in increasingly negative political campaigns, several political analysts said.
This is one of the places where the old way of doing politics and the new way is coming into conflict," said David Weinberger, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. "We have developed a blogosphere that is full of lively debate . . . but at the same time we have political marketers who will use anything they can to advance their own cause.
... Karen S. Johnson-Cartee, a political science professor at the University of Alabama who has written several books on negative television ads, said Hugo's ad "means we have sunk to a new low. ... Most people, especially older Americans, are unfamiliar with the blogs," Johnson-Cartee said. "They have no way of testing the veracity of something posted on a blog."
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/tv/archives/2007/09/017390.htm
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
Comments
Hi, I am an active democratic and republican consultant; in the state of Alabama, one has to work both sides of the aisles to avoid the demagogues, theocrats, and racist iconoclasts. And, I was a registered Republican, when I lived in Roanoke, Virginia, for a number of years. Thank you very much. Furthermore, I served as the 5th and 6th District Young Republicans Campaign Coordinator for Presidential, Senatorial, and Congressional races, in the 1970s in Virginia, staying active in Republican politics, at William and Mary and later at the University of Tennessee, where I volunteered for Lamar Alexander. Not that I've established my Republican bona fides, (does being a CREEP Nixonette help you to see the error of your characterization of me?), let me correct what I have done and why. Here in Alabama, I've done a Republican Attorney General's race, numerous judges, district attorneys, and other local races. And, yes, I've been a gubernatorial Democratic Campaign consultant, Democratic Congressional Campaign Consultant, and a host of other regional, local, and state legislative offices. I vote the man or woman and the issues, not the emotion. Here, I just want the good guys or gals to win, and I don't play party-belong games, where in the true areas, with at risk populations, you need to walk both sides of the aisles to get things done for the betterment of society and the body politic. And, coded insider language that only a fellow blogster would know, violates universal ethical constraints for identifying ad hominem attackers (AAPC). Yours truly, Karen Johnson-Cartee, Ph. D.
P.S. I'm a political scientist, but I'm a professor of advertising and public relations.
Posted by: ttownkari | October 1, 2007 8:22 PM