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Seeing Spots:

A functional analysis of presidential television advertisements, 1952-1996.

This book applies the functional theory of political campaign discourse to analyze 829 presidential tv spots from general campaigns, 765 from primary campaigns, and 62 from third party candidates.  It begins with the first year presidential candidates used this new medium, 1952, and analyzes every year through the most recent campaign.

In general, candidates use more acclaims than attacks, and more attacks than defenses.  General campaigns tend to be more negative (more attacks and fewer acclaims) than primary campaigns.  Spots from third party candidates were similar to primary spots.  Both primary and general campaigns are becoming more negative over time (the single most negative campaign, surprisingly, was Eisenhower in 1952).

Candidates discuss policy (issues) more than character (image), and the percentage of remarks devoted to policy has increased over time.

Incumbents acclaim more than challengers, while challengers attack more than incumbents.  Republicans were more positive than Democrats.  There was no difference in function between winners and losers.  However, candidates in close races were most positive, candidates who trailed throughout the campaign were most negative, and candidates who led throughout the campaign were in between these extremes.