Negative campaigning is a term used in politics that refers to the strategy of targeting an opponent and highlighting their weaknesses or faults, rather than focusing on one’s own strengths and policies. It involves a variety of tactics such as attack ads, contrast ads, push polls, and dirty tricks. The effects of negative campaigning can be impactful and memorable, often leading to a significant influence on voter turnout and public perception. While it can provide informational benefits for voters, it also raises ethical concerns regarding the truthfulness of claims and the motivations behind the campaign. Media plays a crucial role in these campaigns, leveraging tactics that shape public image and perception. Examples of negative campaigning can be seen in various forms like ad hominem attacks, smear campaigns, and mudslinging. Negative campaigning is a widely studied phenomenon in political science, with research examining aspects such as gender differences, coalition dynamics, and the overall impact and consequences of such campaigns.
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (October 2017) |
Negative campaigning is the process of deliberately spreading negative information about someone or something to worsen the public image of the described. A colloquial, and somewhat more derogatory, term for the practice is mudslinging.
Deliberate spreading of such information can be motivated either by honest desire of the campaigner to warn others against real dangers or deficiencies of the described, or by the campaigner's dishonest ideas on methods of winning in political, business or other spheres of competition against an honest rival. However, if the mudslinging statements can be proved to be correct, mudslinging takes the moral dimension of an opponent's duty serving the greater good by exposing the weakness of the other candidate.
The public image of an entity can be defined as reputation, esteem, respect, acceptance of the entity's appearance, values and behaviour by the general public of a given territory and/or a social group, possibly within time limits. As target groups of public and their values differ, so negativity or positivity of a public image is relative; thus, to be successful, negative campaigning has to take into account current values of the group it addresses. The degree of strictness in practicing the group's values as opposed to its tolerance for violating the norms has also to be taken into consideration.
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