Isabel Bustos/The Cougar
As the Texas general election approaches, voters are encountering political advertisements across television, social media and other digital platforms. The repetition has made some campaign messages difficult to ignore, but their frequency raises questions about how much useful information voters actually receive.
Rather than focusing on policy proposals, many ads rely on accusations, personal attacks and emotionally charged language intended to shape voters’ perceptions of opposing candidates.
Repeated exposure to campaign advertising doesn’t necessarily leave voters better informed about the candidates seeking office. At a time when voters are concerned about issues such as affordability and public services, ads centered on personal insults can distract from important policy discussions.
Do they even work?
Political campaigns spend millions of dollars on advertising, raising questions about how effectively those messages influence voters. A 2020 Yale-led study examining political advertisements from the 2016 presidential election found that individual ads had relatively little influence on voters’ preferences, regardless of their tone or intended audience.
Yale political scientist Alexander Coppock found that positive advertisements were no more persuasive than attack ads. However, political advertising still serves an important purpose by introducing candidates, highlighting policy differences and encouraging political participation.
Advertisements examining a candidate’s record can provide voters with valuable information, particularly when their claims are supported by evidence. While they can help inform voters or increase participation, the studies still show how little these constant ads do to persuade the vote.
New-age campaigns
As generative artificial intelligence becomes more accessible, voters face new challenges in determining whether political content is authentic. This is the unfortunate truth of our current reality, as there are few federal regulations on the content and creation of AI.
AI-generated content has become more common in political advertising, with at least 15 campaign ads featuring the technology airing since November. AI tools can generate everything from written posts to realistic images, audio and video, making manipulated political content increasingly difficult to detect. They are also highly inaccurate and can fabricate fake evidence for anything.
“AI-generated videos and images will, in the long term, desensitize voters to the importance of factually accurate information,” said University of Maryland political science professor Ernesto Calvo
Rice University political science professor Mark Jones has also discussed the growing use of AI in political campaigns, where manipulated audio and video can misrepresent candidates.
In January, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton posted an AI-generated video depicting political opponents in a fabricated scenario. The video allegedly showed U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett dancing together, although the scene was artificially generated.
Such videos show how AI can blur the distinction between political satire and misleading representations of real candidates.
Repetitive personal attacks and misleading campaign messages can distract voters from the policies and qualifications that should guide their decisions. Some politicians are so focused on bullying their opponents that I fear they have forgotten how to do their jobs. Political campaigns should earn voters’ trust through substance and transparency, not rely on personal attacks to win their attention.
opinion@thedailycougar.com
