Television Advertising in Canadian Elections: The Attack Mode, 1993

Eric P. Mintz is an associate professor of political science at Sir
Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

One of the more memorable disasters of the 1993 Canadian election
campaign was the PC commercial that seemed to make fun of Liberal leader
Jean Chrétien’s physical appearance. The significance of such
negative television campaign advertising is explored in this report on
research conducted by a team of scholars from the University of Windsor
and l’Université Laval. The authors engage in content analysis of
televised commercials and assess the findings from their interviews with
party strategists, surveys of university students on two campuses, and
in-depth interviews with residents of two cities. They also consider the
ethics of political advertising.

Although their study is an important contribution to the limited body
of systematic research concerning Canadian election campaigns, it
disappoints on a number of levels. Few insights are gained from the
interviews with party strategists. The research concerning the effects
of negative advertising does not seem conclusive. The examination of a
single election campaign (along with a brief commentary on advertising
in the 1997 campaign) based on the analysis of a relatively small number
of advertisements does not seem sufficient to gain a clear understanding
of campaign advertising. Finally, the research methodology of some
aspects of the study is not fully presented.