POLITICAL ADVERTISING

 

Political Advertising

Political campaign is organized effort to secure nomination and election of candidates. A political ad means an announcement or message of any form which is broadcast in return of payment by a candidate in elections. It does not include letters to editors, news or features articles or editorial comments. The essential task of political advertising is to gain the confidence of the people and influence their vote. Political advertising raises many questions concerning the funding of political campaigns, the reality of political claims and the likelihood of slanderous or libelous claims made by political candidates.

The amount spent on political campaigns is still small compared with commercial advertising. Political advertising frequently engages in comparative advertising in which opposing candidate programmes and performance are criticized and ridiculed.

Political ads are generally perceived as partially true and often dismissed as dishonest. Political ads must get results in a short period of time. Campaign costs have become enormous parties and candidates need to raise a lot of money. Financial contributions by corporations have been restricted by law.

Political advertising is subject to different rules than ads for commercial products and services. Because “political speech” is widely acknowledged as the core reason behind the free speech as the most valuable (and hence, most protected) form of speech. Political advertising is both advertising and political speech, but since it does not fall within the definition of “commercial speech” it is considered political speech and receives the highest degree of protection under the first Amendment. The use of professional agency for a political campaign in India dates back to the 1980’s when Rajiv Gandhi used one.

Political advertising is not wholly unregulated though. It is subject to some minor restraint under the Federal Communications Commission’s Equal Access law and under the Federal Election Act. Also, most states have some laws that apply to political advertising, though most of those restrictions never have been tested for constitutionality and they are largely uninformed. At this point little information specifically dealing with political advertising has been posted on the Internet.

Political parties are beginning to see the value of scientific planning and marketing techniques as they go into elections.

It is a lethal weapon of manipulating minds, used by political parties and has become aggression in recent years.

Political advertising associated with elections to government offices has been the focus of much consumer and voter criticism. It is characterized by advertising in which one opponent launches a vicious and degrading attack in the ethics and morals or law breaking behavior of the other followed by counter attack by his or her opponent of similar kind. This type of political advertising is often used as a very visible example of bad taste in mass communication and adding further to the general cynicism of voter attitudes towards politicians and government. The problem is that advocates of the negative advertising strategy have shown that in many instances it works. It has been shown that negative advertising can be effective in accomplishing a primary objective, like winning an election, but it can also result undesirable secondary side effects such as increasing cynical attitudes about politics & politicians.