Syntactical Means Of Impact In American Political Advertising

Manipulation principles of ads

Political advertising appears on the airwaves during the pre-election period which is abundant with the releases of this kind. Such a cascade of political bombarding influences the emotional condition of the society. Informative messages can hardly be distinguished from smear campaigns containing manipulative contents. These commercials do not only convey information about the candidate, they use different means to give a hint that this candidate is better than others thus manipulating the audience’s consciousness.

Any person’s behavior depends on depth perceptions which lie in subliminal consciousness, formed under the influence of social environment, personal experience and various psychological patterns. It is believed by many scholars that the goal of advertising is the predetermination of behavioral motivation and its manipulation. Consequently, the idea conveyed by the commercial is usually placed on the unconscious level, while the advertising concept is based on people’s emotional and psychological perceptions (Romanova, 2015).

The manipulative power of political advertising is based on surveys that are conducted before the campaign starts. On the basis of the survey that reveals the main contemporary problems of the society the candidate builds up their strategy (Nebredovskaya, 2018). In fact, it does not matter whether politicians really want to solve these issues or not, they just use their promises to solve the problem to manipulate the audience.

Another manipulation mechanism is the production techniques used by sponsors in ads. One of the most powerful of them is the language choice. The catchier the advertising clip is made, the more memorable it becomes, and the more it makes the voter think of this candidate.

Negative advertising

Manipulation can be easily traced in negative advertising, or attack advertising. The point of this type of advertising is to diminish the political role of the subject of the attack, providing the attacker with some sort of advantage (Belt, 2017). Negative ads are opposed to positive ones, which are also called promotional ads because they advocate for the candidate. The third type of advertising is contrast ads; they combine elements of both positive and negative commercials. Contrast ads portray one candidate from the positive side and their opponent from the negative side. The contrast can even be shown on the visual level. Candidates under attack are presented in black-an-white, whereas the target candidate is portrayed in brighter colours. As these ads still include an element of the attack, they are considered to be negative as well (Belt, 2017).

Nevertheless, there are different opinions on the effectiveness of negative ads. Some scholars believe that negative advertising is more powerful than positive one. The claim it exerts a greater influence especially on uncertain voters. As Nebredovskaya (2018) says, it is the easiest tactic of the electoral campaign because negative advertising appeals to voters’ emotions causing the sense of resentment. Discrediting the competitor is believed to be much simpler than presenting your program and suggesting ways of solving existing problems.

Other researchers claim that modern markets want ‘more aspirational value offerings, they want to be engaged with in a positive way that gives them hope that their government and nations will be better places to live in’ (Hughes, 2018, p. 2). Negative ads do not satisfy this belief and, therefore, are not effective. In this way, negative ads can produce a backlash effect, discrediting the target candidate of the ad instead of the attacking candidate.

In general, it is a doubtful question whether negative advertising is effective or not, but, anyway, it provokes fact-checking behavior and interest in the political campaign.

Empirical methods

Empirical methods include content analysis, surveys and experiments. Let us start with the latter. Experiments presuppose the use of control or comparison groups to study the effects of political advertising. Most of such research takes place online now, for example, the Internet survey experiment conducted by Fridkin, Kenney, and Wintersieck (2015) on the subject of fact-checking. The scholars examine the influence that fact-checks have on shaping the citizen’s views of negative ads and political candidates.

Surveys study the effects of political advertising on people’s political behaviors. Survey methods are used to describe and track these effects nationwide or over time. They demand a huge collection of observational data.

Content analysis, when combined with experimental or observational data, can be used to make suggestions about potential effects of certain advertising media. For example, some researchers matched the results of political ads study with levels of exposure to different geographical areas (Slater, 2016). Content analysis is closely related to systematic categorization of advertising components through numeric assignments. This type of analysis concentrates on the items that represent three major categories of research: production techniques, verbal content and nonverbal content (Kearney & Banwart, 2017).

Content analysis

This study relates to the content analysis of American political ads shot from 2018 to 2020 and deals with the verbal and nonverbal contents. As for the verbal content, this research only touches upon syntactical means of expression, such as syntactical parallelism, rhetorical questions, anaphor, imperative structures, antithesis and detachment. As for the nonverbal content, it speculates on the idea that syntactical devices are often accompanied by visual representation on the screen for emphasizing the verbal content.

The language means are described thoroughly and studied from their implicit meaning perspective. In this research we tried to describe the principles of the formation of linguistic expressions which influence the recipients’ mentality and, therefore, cause the intended reaction. Consequently, the descriptive method and the cognitive analysis method contribute greatly to the content analysis employed in this study. Moreover, the content analysis is examined through the perspective of the stylistic analysis, a method, which is used to study the given piece of text (Khan, & Mansoor, & Upham, 2018). The stylistic analysis is determined by various figures of speech, in our case, the syntactical ones.

Syntactical parallelism

Syntactical parallelism helps to concentrate on the main idea. Even if the thoughts conveyed in both sentences are different they seem to be one idea, expressed with different words, due to the usage of parallel structures. For example, in 2018 ‘Rod Rosenstein: Do your job or resign!’ ad, parallel structures sound like slogans (‘Time for him to stand up for the rule of law and stand up for the American people’. It’s time for Rod Rosenstein to do his job or resign’). Syntactical parallelism can be used in combination with rhetorical questions, anaphor and imperative structures.

Rhetorical questions

Rhetorical questions are peculiar kinds of devices in the way that they draw two realities in mind: one is connected with the positive answer to the question and the other is connected with the negative answer. Our brain is structured in such a way that it analyses both, but the recipients do not even notice this because it happens very quickly and subconsciously. As a result, the recipient chooses the negative answer because rhetorical questions predict the answer in advance. They already contain the answer in themselves but it does not prevent them from suggesting two ways of thinking. In the 2017 ad ‘Immoral’, Roy Moore is hammered by Doug Jones over sexual misconduct. The audiences are asked the question ‘Will we make the abuser a U.S. Senator?’ The intended answer is, of course, ‘No’, but people are still made to think what will happen if the answer is ‘Yes’. They are allegedly given the chance to choose, but the choice is obvious. That is why such syntactical devices are always used in negative advertising.

Anaphor

Anaphor serves for emphasis. It highlights the main idea that the recipient should catch and, as a result, make a conclusion. Anaphor is mostly used in positive advertising with the exception of cases when it is implied in rhetorical questions. Thus, in the 2018 ad Phil Bredesen plays on the audience’s senses saying, ‘We need and deserve something better than we’re getting from Washington. We need and deserve a senator who can make that happen,’ implying the idea that he is the senator they need. The repetition of ideas with the help of this device makes the recipient think of it thoroughly and seal up the idea in the mind, even if it is not expressed explicitly. The brain has to figure out the implied meaning by itself. Due to this fact, due to the complex operations that the brain has to do, such ads become more memorable. The more complex operations the brain does while processing information, the more this information stands in mind.

Imperative structures

Anaphor can be combined with imperative structures that can sound either compulsive or subtle. Imperatives as well as rhetorical questions presuppose two possible variants of the situation development. If you do this, there will be one consequence. If you do not, there will be another. These ideas are played mentally. We do not notice how our brain analyses them, but it results in a strong impact. In 2020 ad ‘Imagine’, Joe Biden says, ‘Imagine the progress we can make in the next 4 years. Imagine a country where affordable healthcare is a right, not a privilege…’ So, when you ‘imagine’ this, you understand that the reality is different. These examples of imperatives sound subtle and soft, unlike the ones that directly call up to vote. They sound very compulsive. The survey has showed that imperative structures are used both in negative and positive ads.

Antithesis

Antithesis is a powerful tool carrying both positive and negative connotation in political ads. Antithesis is built on the counterposition of two candidates. In some cases the attacked candidate is not even mentioned but implied. In the 2016 Hilary Clinton’s ad ‘Roar’, the ideas of the pre-election campaign message are repeated with the anaphora ‘I’m voting for respect. I’m voting for courage. I’m voting for equality,’ and then they are suddenly interrupted with the antithesis ‘I’m voting against hate.’ This is the hint on Donald’s Trump political agenda against immigrants, though his name is not even pronounced. Antithesis presupposes both the syntactical use and mental. The latter means that the antithesis may not be present in the text, it can be implied subconsciously.

Detachment

For emphasis, ad makers often use detachment, separating words carrying the main sense and, therefore, making the recipient concentrate their attention on it. Moreover, in all commercials with detachment examples, these syntactical structures are printed on the screen in order to be enhanced. For instance, in the advertising of 2018 called ‘Disturbing’, the detached words are printed on the black-and-white background to sound worrying (‘Court Documents. Real facts. Roy Moore’s disturbing conduct.’). The detailed examination has showed that detachments are mostly employed in negative ads because such abruptness sounds frightening.