… There was a lot of political advertising on TV during the primaries. By one count, ads were shown nearly three-quarters of a million times. Media consultants will tell you the primary ads worked. But you’d expect that, because it’s often in their financial interest to persuade candidates to advertise. What is more surprising is that research from political scientists, some involving creative and carefully designed field experiments done in cooperation with real campaigns, corroborates this notion. CONT.
Lynn Vavreck (UCLA), New York Times