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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

effect of identity, independent expenditure committee ads, election cycle

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Political Science

Abstract

In the 2012 Presidential election cycle, independent expenditure committees, or Super PACs, had spent a more than $237 million advocating for one or the other presidential candidate (OpenSecrets.org, 2013). Given the large sums of money that independent expenditure committees are raising and spending to influence the outcome of presidential elections, it is worth investigating how the source of Super PAC ads affects the way they are received. As such, the purpose of this ORCA project was to investigate whether voters provided with specific identifying information for the source of an advertisement will evaluate a message differently than voters given less explicit or absent source cues.

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