The Intersection of Candidate Gender and Ethnicity: How Voters Respond to Campaign Messages from Latinas

Despite the recent surge of women of color in elected political office in the U.S., the representation of Latinas is strikingly low. Past research offers unclear conclusions as to whether Latina political candidates face biases due to the intersection of their identities as women and as ethnic minorities, and how Latinas can navigate such biases. In this study, we identify how Latinas draw on their intersectional identities as both women and ethnic minorities to develop strategic campaign messages and how voters respond to such messages. Through an analysis of campaign advertising data and an original survey experiment, we show that Latina candidates do not face an automatic disadvantage based in gender and ethnic biases, but they can benefit from the intersection of these two identities, especially among female minority voters. These results are consequential because they offer insights into how to improve the descriptive and substantive representation of marginalized groups in the U.S.

Informative campaigning in multidimensional politics: The role of naïve voters

This paper aims to investigate the possibility that electoral campaigning transmits truthful information in a situation where campaigning has a direct persuasive effect on a subset of the electorate called “naïve voters.” To this end, we construct a multi-sender signaling game in which an incumbent and a challenger decide whether to focus on policy or ability in electoral campaigning, and a media outlet then decides whether to gather news. Voters are divided into sophisticated and naïve voters. We demonstrate that a candidate's strategy regarding their issues of focus (campaign messages) can signal his or her private information. Specifically, negative campaigning against the incumbent's ability signals the incumbent's low ability in all separating equilibria. It is also noteworthy that separating equilibria exist only when sophisticated and naïve voters coexist. This implies that a fraction of naïve voters has a non-monotonic effect on the possibility of transmitting truthful information.

Effect of a Waiting Room Communication Strategy on Imaging Rates and Awareness of Public Health Messages for Low Back Pain

Background Few studies have investigated the effects of waiting room communication strategies on healthcare behavior. We aimed to determine the effect of a waiting room communication strategy, designed to raise awareness of potential harms of unnecessary imaging, on lumbar imaging rates in the Emergency Department (ED). Methods We conducted a controlled experimental study with BABA or ‘replicated time series’ design. Design included a 6-week run-in time. Following this there were alternating one-week intervention and control periods. The intervention group received a communication strategy describing the potential harms of unnecessary imaging for low back pain, shown on the same 55” screen as the standard messaging. The communication strategy was designed by a creative innovation agency and included five digital posters and a patient leaflet. The control group received standard messaging for the waiting room at the time, shown on a 55” LCD screen, and the patient leaflet. The primary outcome was the number and proportion of people presenting to ED with low back pain who received at least one lumbar imaging test, measured using routinely collected ED data. Secondary patient-reported outcomes (patient satisfaction, awarenesss of campaign messages) were collected from a sample of people presenting for any condition who responded to a text message-based survey. Results For the imaging outcome, 337 people presenting to ED with low back pain were included over a 4-month period (intervention n= 99; control n= 238). All had available data on lumbar imaging. Use of lumbar imaging was 25% in those exposed to the communication strategy (95% CI= 18% to 35%) compared with 29% in those exposed to the standard waiting room messaging (95% CI= 23% to 35%) (OR= 0.83; 95% CI= 0.49 to 1.41). For the patient-reported outcomes, 349 patients presenting to ED for any condition responded to the survey (intervention n=170; control n=179; response rate =33%). There was uncertain evidence that the intervention increased awareness of the communication strategy leaflet (OR= 2.00, 95% CI= 0.90 to 4.47). Other measures did not suggest between-group differences in patient satisfaction or awareness of the campaign messages. Conclusion A communication strategy displayed in the emergency department waiting room may slightly reduce the proportion of patients with low back pain who receive lumbar imaging; though there is uncertainty due to imprecision. The campaign did not appear to increase awareness of campaign messages or affect patient satisfaction in a sample of patients presenting to the ED for any reason. Larger studies should investigate whether simple, low-cost waiting room communication strategies can raise awareness of unnecessary healthcare and influence healthcare quality. Trial registration : ACTRN12620000300976, 05/03/2020

Pengaruh Kredibilitas, Kualitas Pendekatan Emosional, Dan Kualitas Isi Pesan Terhadap Efektivitas Kampanye “Love Myself”

A successful social campaign was created from elements such a specific targeted audience, campaign messages, developed theory of change, and use a proper communicator. The elements formulated in the rhetoric theory: credibility, emotions, messages. The elements were conducted in a campaign called “Love Myself” by BTS, a K-pop group. This study was conducted to figure out the effect of credibility, the quality of the emotional approach, and the quality of the messages from K-pop group BTS on the effectiveness of the campaign “Love Myself”. This study uses a rhetoric theory that focuses on the aspects of ethos (credibility), pathos (emotions), and logos (logic). This study uses a survey method, especially an online questionnaire. Non-probability sampling is a sampling technique where not every population has a chance to become a sample. Quota sampling where the quota set first by the researcher. The population is total followers of Twitter account @armyindonesiaa2 and the number of sampling, 395. The analysis technique uses path analysis. The result presents the final model where six relation variables are not significant. Based on the test model, the final model is no longer suitable for use as a research model compared to the hypothetical model. The largest total effect result, forming from variable effectiveness of the campaign “Love Myself”. The process of this research concluded that the credibility and emotional approach of K-pop group BTS has no contribution to the effectiveness of the campaign “Love Myself”.

Feeling Connected to the Cause: The Role of Perceived Social Distance on Cause Involvement and Consumer Response to CSR Communication

Despite the importance of companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts to support the issue of empowering women, little is known about which communication strategies are effective for a successful CSR initiative. This research investigated how CSR messages influences consumer evaluations of a CSR activity supporting women’s empowerment via consumers’ cause involvement by conducting two experimental studies. In Study 1, a 2 (CSR message type: in-group vs. out-group) × 2 (gender: female vs. male) online factorial experiment ( n = 140) was employed. The results indicate that consumers evaluated the CSR activity more positively when they were exposed to an in-group message than an out-group message. To increase the validity and explain the process by which CSR message types influence consumer evaluations of a CSR activity, Study 2 was conducted. Psychological distance manipulated by CSR campaign messages increased an individual’s level of cause involvement, which in turn influenced the individuals’ response to the CSR activities. Implications are discussed.

Are microtargeted campaign messages more negative and diverse? An analysis of Facebook Ads in European election campaigns

Concerns about the use of online political microtargeting (OPM) by campaigners have arisen since the Cambridge Analytica scandal hit the international political arena. In addition to providing conceptual clarity on OPM and explore the use of such techniques in Europe, this paper seeks to empirically disentangle the differing behaviours of campaigners when they message citizens through microtargeted rather than non-targeted campaigning. More precisely, I hypothesise that campaigners use negative campaigning and are more diverse in terms of topics when they use OPM. To investigate whether these expectations hold true, I use text-as-data techniques to analyse an original dataset of 4,091 political Facebook Ads during the last national elections in Austria, Italy, Germany and Sweden. Results show that while microtargeted ads might indeed be more thematically diverse, there does not seem to be a significant difference to non-microtargeted ads in terms of negativity. In conclusion, I discuss the implications of these findings for microtargeted campaigns and how future research could be conducted.

Experiencing multimodal rhetoric and argumentation in political advertisements: a study of how people respond to the rhetoric of multimodal communication

Research into visual and multimodal rhetoric has been dominated by social scientific and textual perspectives that may not be able to provide documented understandings of how rhetorical objects are actually experienced by an audience. In this study, the authors engage in rhetorical protocol analysis through 10 in-depth interviews asking informants to make sense of selected political advertisements in the 2020 US election campaign. They examine the types of competing sensory elements found within the campaign texts and situations, which they term ‘multimodal incongruity’ and establish two types of cognitive frameworks informants use when engaging in the political rhetoric of the commercials: personal experience and cynicism. Personal experience allowed the informants to make sense of and argue against campaign messages. Cynicism often guided participants to unpack the generic conventions of political advertising, politics more generally, and opposing partisan strategies. Both interpretive frames – but the frame of cynicism, in particular – enable participants to critically distance their reading of and emotional response to the campaign commercials. This critical distancing reveals connections between rationality and emotionality through ‘deliberative embedding’, meaning that the emotional is understood in terms of and negotiated in relation to already established cognitive frameworks of information, opinions and cynical readings of the genre. The authors conclude the essay by reflecting on their methodological and theoretical insights regarding multimodal rhetoric.

Communication Campaigns to Support the Use of Nutritional Warnings: Different Messages for Different People?

Communication campaigns are expected to contribute to increase the efficacy of nutritional warnings. In this context, the aims of the present work were (a) to evaluate how citizens perceive different types of messages for a communication campaign and (b) to determine if personal characteristics such as gender, age, and educational level, as well socioeconomic and nutritional status, moderate how citizens perceive such campaign messages. A series of graphic pieces were designed for each of the following three types of messages: promotion of informed food choices; raising awareness of the negative health consequences of excessive consumption of sugar, fat, and sodium; and promotion of healthy food choices. An online study was conducted with 774 participants, who were randomly assigned to one of the three types of messages. The participants’ self-reported perception of the graphic pieces was evaluated using 7-point Likert-type scales. After completing the evaluation task, the participants proceeded to a series of choices. This was implemented to evaluate whether exposure to different types of messages affected hypothetical food choices. Results revealed that messages related to the promotion of healthy eating were perceived as the most adequate as part of a communication campaign and had the potential to encourage more healthful hypothetical choices in the experimental task. However, gender, age, and nutritional status moderated the influence of the type of message on the participants’ perception, meaning that different groups perceived different types of messages as the most adequate. The results from the present work stress the need to include different types of messages in a communication campaign to target individuals with different motivations and characteristics.