More Cold Case Than Hot Spot A Study of Public Opinion on Political Advertising in Swedish Television

Abstract

How does the public perceive televised political advertising when it is introduced as a completely new element of campaign communications? The European Parliamentary Elections in 2009 may be characterized as the first campaign where such advertising appeared on a larger scale in Sweden, but the National Election Campaign in 2006 was the initial breakthrough for political advertising in television. Two major research questions are raised: First, how can public opinion on such political advertising be described? Second, how are these attitudes related to individual and societal factors? The results indicate that attitudes towards political advertising in Sweden are in line with attitudes towards advertising in general. However, ideological beliefs on the individual level seem to be almost irrelevant. Without being on the political agenda, the political TV-advertising issue is mainly consid- ered from non-political perspectives.