Political advertising is a major method of campaigning in modern day (Kaid, 2002). This article sought to find out the effect of political advertisement on the perception of the youth regarding leaders. Moreover, issues of issue recall, candidate evaluation, cynicism and gender differences were measured among 764 young adults during the 2004 American election (Postelnicu, Kaid, Landreville, LeGrange, & Yun, 2007). This paper is a critique on the major UBR components of the paper.
Participants
The study made use of an experimental design using students from thirteen different universities. In this case, convenience sampling was used as the study required people who would be at the right place at the right time. The study describes university students were chosen from their institutions of learning due to the easy accessibility of large numbers of young voters at institutions of higher learning.
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Although convenience sampling was used, a variety of requirements was checked against the sample population to ensure that there is adequate presentation of what was required. Some of these checks included political affiliation, home state and gender distribution concern. This ensured that the convenience sample represented the American youth in their entirety.
Procedure
The respondents filled out two questionnaires – a pre-test and post-test questionnaire. The pre-test questionnaire was administered after respondents arrived at the research location. A second questionnaire was administered after respondents viewed five alternating advertisements of two presidential candidates that had been running prior to the election date.
A relational research design is used here. It describes changes in young voters’ perceptions of candidates when exposed to political advertisements. The use of the questionnaire, although fairly obtrusive, provides rich information and gives flexibility to the researcher, thereby allowing them to understand the gist of changes experienced after viewing political advertisements.
Furthermore, the two questionnaires used in this case provide in-depth knowledge of the changes that occurred after viewing the advertisements. In fact, the pre-test and post-test questionnaire provide the researcher with an analysis of the state of the respondents before and after viewing the political advertisements, thereby giving the researcher the ability to accurately measure the change which occurred during the advertisement viewing.
Additionally, the use of questionnaires provides various advantages that may not be present in other forms of data collection, including its ability to be less time-consuming and easier to code and score, compared to the interview counterparts. The nature of the standard questions involved enables the researcher to easily make comparisons between responses. The fact that literacy of respondents is a key consideration in the use of questionnaires, the instrument was used appropriately for this purpose as the respondents all have university education.
Measuring Instrument
The study used as pre-test and post-test questionnaire. This employs the double use of the single cross-section survey design, which measures the outcome of the variables at two distinct times of change in the study. This overcomes the evidence of the use of the single cross-section design as it now provides the evidence of causality, which concerns political advertisement and its effect on the young voters. The use of the pre-test and post-test questionnaires thus overcomes the challenge of single cross-section study designs as it provides the researcher with evidence of causality.
Moreover, the study employed the use of seasoned election measurement elements such as the feeling thermometer, used traditionally for National Election Studies and a 12-item semantic scale that has been used to measure candidate perceptions for over 40 years (Rosenstone, Kinder, & Miller, 1997; Kaid, 2004). With this semantic scale, high reliability was achieved, ensuring that the data obtained from the study could be depended on as accurate. Other measures used for information efficacy among young voters and political cynicism levels had high reliability, showing that the instruments used for this study could provide dependable results. As a result, objectivity and detail of the study could be depended on based on the analysis of the instruments used.
Conclusion
A look at the three UBR components available in this paper gives a full analysis of why the methods used for this paper were best fit. With regards to the sample population, the study required a large group of youthful voters to determine the effect of political advertisement on different measures. A convenience sample was chosen from thirteen institutions of higher learning, as youthful voters are highly accessible as university students. Further, a pre-test and post-test questionnaire was administered to the respondents, thereby overcoming the challenges of a single cross-section design. Thus, this design enabled the study to measure change and hence, determine causality and provide its evidence. Furthermore, seasoned measuring instruments were used to provide high reliability for the results on information efficacy, political cynicism and issue recall.
References
Kaid, L. L. (2002). Political advertising and information seeking: Comparing exposure via traditional and Internet channels. Journal of Advertising, 31(1) , 27-36.
Kaid, L. L. (2004). Measuring candidate images with semantic differentials. In K. L. (Ed.), Presidential candidate images (pp. 231-236). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Postelnicu, M., Kaid, L. L., Landreville, K., LeGrange, A., & Yun, H. J. (2007). The Effects of Political Advertising on Young Voters. American Behavioral Scientist, 50 , 1137.
Rosenstone, S. J., Kinder, D. R., & Miller, W. E. (1997). American national election study 1996: Pre- and post-election survey [Computer file]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan - Center for Political Studies.
