Saturday, March 22, 2008

Questionable advertising

There are few people who have not seen a political advertisement this year.  Way beyond a year in advance, presidential candidates started running ads to boost their popularity.  Some of these ads are basic and just show the candidate's stances on major issues.  As you approach the November elections, the purpose of the ads change.  Many of them become attack ads on other candidates in the same party.  A recent article on Poynter discussed a new form of these advertisements.  Barack Obama bought space on newspaper sites in the Ohio and Texas areas.  Some of those sites included Akron Beacon Journal and the Houston Chronicle.  The ads on these sites dropped down when you opened the newspaper's site.  The Poynter article asks questions about why the newspaper chose to run these ads.  Would it run ads like this on the front page of the newspaper? 

Personally, I am getting a little tired of all the political ads, as are many others.  We have been overwhelmed by these ads for too long and I have really just started tuning them out.  At this point I can't imagine a political ad makes that much of a difference.   

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