The impact of negative political advertising and election participation

Political advertising is one of the most important practical tools of political marketing communications, and it can be divided into two forms in terms of content: Positive political advertising and negative political advertising. One of the most significant applications of negative political advertising is to mobilize people to participate in elections as well as increasing the number of voters during elections. In addition, the candidates and political parties use this kind of advertising to weaken their competitor's position. The aim of the study is to investigate the impact of negative political advertising through voting intention on voting preference. We have applied descriptive and inferential analysis methods. The questionnaire has been used for data collection. Our study consisted of all people that are eligible to vote in Tehran. Thus, our samples include 455 people living in different area of the city. Further, we used correlation methods and logistic regression models in order to test the hypotheses. The results show that negative political advertising can have an impact on the willingness of voters to vote. However, this effect has not been seen in all aspects of negative political advertising.