Chapter 25 Further Reading: Political Advertising: From TV Spots to Targeted Ads

Historical Development

Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. The definitive history of presidential advertising from 1952 through the mid-1990s. Jamieson's analysis of specific ads remains the model for how to discuss political advertising as both strategic communication and cultural artifact. Essential historical grounding.

West, Darrell M. Air Wars: Television Advertising and Social Media in Election Campaigns, 1952–2020. 8th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2022. The most comprehensive overview of television advertising in American campaigns, updated through the 2020 cycle. Covers methodology, trends, and case studies across presidential and Senate races. Accessible introduction to the field.

Advertising Effectiveness Research

Gerber, Alan S., James G. Gimpel, Donald P. Green, and Daron R. Shaw. "How Large and Long-Lasting Are the Persuasive Effects of Televised Campaign Ads? Results from a Randomized Field Experiment." American Political Science Review 105, no. 1 (2011): 135–150. The foundational field experiment on advertising effects and decay. The decay finding—half-life of approximately one week—is the most strategically important result in the advertising effects literature. Read this carefully before forming views on television advertising strategy.

Kalla, Joshua L., and David E. Broockman. "The Minimal Persuasive Effects of Campaign Contact in General Elections: Evidence from 49 Field Experiments." American Political Science Review 112, no. 1 (2018): 148–166. The essential meta-analysis on campaign contact persuasion effects. Near-zero average effects with important qualifications for primaries, down-ballot races, and mobilization. The paper that sparked the most debate in academic campaign consulting about what political advertising can actually do.

Ridout, Travis N., and Michael Franz. The Persuasive Power of Campaign Advertising. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. Synthesizes the advertising effectiveness literature through an accessible academic lens. Focuses on message effects—which types of advertising content are most effective, and for whom?

Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Shanto Iyengar. Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate. New York: Free Press, 1995. The most controversial book on negative advertising—it argues that negative advertising demobilizes voters. Read alongside subsequent work that substantially qualifies the demobilization finding.

Television Advertising and Media Markets

Franz, Michael M., Paul Freedman, Kenneth M. Goldstein, and Travis N. Ridout. Campaign Advertising and American Democracy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007. Comprehensive analysis of advertising in the 2000s campaign cycle, using Wesleyan Media Project data. The best illustration of how to use systematic advertising data for political analysis.

Wesleyan Media Project. Annual and cycle reports at mediaproject.wesleyan.edu. The authoritative source for political advertising tracking data. Public reports on advertising in major races are indispensable for applied advertising analysis. The site includes downloadable data for academic use.

Digital Advertising and Micro-Targeting

Hersh, Eitan D. Hacking the Electorate: How Campaigns Perceive Voters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. The most rigorous academic examination of how campaigns use voter file and commercial data to target voters. Hersh's concept of "perceived partisanship" and its consequences for campaign strategy is essential for understanding the voter file targeting ecosystem.

Kreiss, Daniel. Prototype Politics: Technology-Intensive Campaigning and the Data of Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. An ethnographic study of how the Obama and Romney campaigns built their digital data operations. Provides organizational and strategic context for understanding how micro-targeting capabilities are actually developed and deployed.

Fowler, Erika Franklin, Michael M. Franz, and Travis N. Ridout. Political Advertising in the United States. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2016. Systematic analysis of advertising in multiple election cycles, with attention to the growing digital advertising component. The most current comprehensive treatment of the full advertising landscape.

Ad Transparency and Accountability

Dommett, Katharine, and Sam Power. "Political Advertising in the Platform Age: A 'Policy Mess' in Regulatory Reform." Political Studies Review 17, no. 3 (2019): 255–266. An academic assessment of political advertising transparency regulations across democracies, evaluating what current disclosure requirements do and do not reveal. Important context for evaluating the adequacy of existing transparency systems.

Mozilla Foundation. Various reports on Facebook Ad Library limitations. Available at foundation.mozilla.org. Technical assessments of what the Meta Ad Library reveals and—critically—what it conceals. Mozilla's researchers have documented specific limitations in the Ad Library's targeting information disclosure that are highly relevant for researchers using it to study political advertising.

Ethics and Democratic Accountability

Persily, Nathaniel, ed. Solutions to Political Polarization in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. A multi-author volume examining democratic challenges including money in politics, advertising regulation, and digital campaigning. The advertising and campaign finance chapters are particularly relevant.

Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019. The sweeping critical account of how behavioral data extraction underpins the digital economy—including the political advertising ecosystem. Challenging and long, but essential for understanding the commercial data infrastructure that makes micro-targeting possible.

Online Resources

FEC.gov: Federal Election Commission disclosure database. Full expenditure data for candidate committees and political committees. Searchable by candidate, committee, vendor, and purpose.

AdImpact: adimpact.com — Commercial political advertising tracking. Industry standard for real-time political advertising intelligence used by campaigns and media organizations.

Meta Ad Library: facebook.com/ads/library — Searchable database of active and recently inactive political advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Includes estimated spending ranges and broad demographic targeting information.

Google Transparency Report: Political advertising transparency at transparencyreport.google.com — Searchable database of political advertising on Google properties, including YouTube.

OpenSecrets: opensecrets.org — Comprehensive campaign finance data aggregating FEC disclosures, with analysis and accessible interface. The most user-friendly resource for following political money.