“Voters’ Attention, Perceived Effects, and Voting Preferences: Negative Political Advertising in the 2006 Ohio Governor’s Election.” by Jennette Lovejoy, Hong Cheng, and Daniel Riffe question how an individuals political interest is influenced through campaign news, advertising, and negative advertising. The authors conducted a statewide survey and found that individuals who stated that they paid attention to advertisements and negative advertisements experienced effects on themselves and others.  The authors conclude that this finding probably comes from the election race itself.  The authors state the two research questions being asked: Does candidate preference predict attention to political ads in general and to negative political ads in particular? and How well do candidate preference and attention to political ads in general and to negative political ads in particular predict beliefs about the effects of those ads? To gain this information they phoned randomly selected numbers and conducted surveys/questionaries through the demographic of Ohio. The respondents were given a five-point scale, one being not interested at all to five being very interested to show their interest in the governor’s race. They were also asked about the issues that the candidates spoke about and were given a scale to one meaning that they paid no attention to five meaning that they pay a lot of attention.  Lastly, they were asked if they pay attention to political advertisements on television using a scale from one being not at all to five being a great deal. The authors found that political interest was related to whether or not an individual pays attention to political advertising and negative advertising.  An interesting finding was that negative advertisements did not influence a decrease in individuals coming to elections. I think this study illustrates at a shallow level how an individuals political interest is influenced through the media. 

Lovejoy, Jennette, Hong Cheng, and Daniel Riffe. “Voters’ Attention, Perceived Effects, and Voting Preferences: Negative Political Advertising in the 2006 Ohio Governor’s Election.” Mass Communication and Society 13.5 (2010): 487-511.