Particular Ad Campaign Attack on John Kerry

During this past election, there was a specific Ad campaign that attacked the truthfullness of Senator John Kerry's military record in the Vietnam War. It was said to not be related to the Bush ad campaign in anyway. It was done by Swift Vets and POW's for Truth. The different television ads are a combination of a few different techniques of presidential TV comercials. While using real people, commander and chief discredibilty, fear, and backfire on what the Senator has said or done, the swift boat ads contained multiple attacks in a single commercial, and that is why I feel that they were memorable and had an impact.

So why do ads have an effect on how people think? How are they set up to do so? How do they make people feel? Herbert brought up that we should look into how people felt about negative campaigning, such as the ad above, which I think is a wonderful idea. How effective is it? and isn't it convinient that the Bush campaign clearly denys being a part of this merciless campaign against John Kerry? It seems almost too convinient, because normally "mudslinging" is looked down upon... but the blame has been passed to these swift boat POW's who are eager to tell thier stories.

I think that study on the different ads in pop culture is a very closely related study to our own of political ads. To focus on a specific type of ad, one must first look at thie bigger picture. I am anxious to see how thier survey and research progresses.


Quality Blog #2
By: Julie Motheral