|
|
It appears in the Southwestern Mass Communication Journal (SMCJ)
According to the 6/4/2012 Baylor Media Communications article Not Ready to Play Nice: Online Attacks by Presidential Candidates Pose Danger of Inaccuracy for Voters, Baylor University Study Finds, “As voters increasingly rely on websites of presidential primary candidates for news, they run a risk because candidates' online attacks are not vetted through traditional ‘watchdog journalists’ and other gatekeepers to determine accuracy or fairness, according to a study by Baylor University researchers.”
So, in other words, don’t believe much in these political ads because they were found to be mostly inaccurate and unfair. We seem to need organizations to watchdog our political leaders because otherwise they (may) mislead the public with their ads.
Dr. Mia Moody, one of the authors of the study and an assistant professor of journalism, public relations, and new media at Baylor College, stated, "The primary danger is that constituents often use this one-sided information to decide how to vote."
So, don’t rely on this information when deciding who to vote for.
Dr. Joseph Brown, an associate professor of political science at Baylor, is the other author of the study. The two researchers analyzed over 700 news releases from various website involving the presidential primary candidates from September 1, 2007, to October 31, 2007.
This study does not contain political advertisements from the latest rounds of political maneuvering going on between Republican hopeful Mitt Romney and Democratic president Barack Obama.
However, I’ll bet my bottom dollar the ads are just as negative and misleading as those analyzed in this study – from both sides of the political aisle.
Page two concludes.
