By Charita M. Goshay, Canton Repository
In partnership with the Ohio Media Project, newspapers around the state, including The Repository, are publishing a series of stories about what goes into a political campaign. One story featured people who volunteered to be test subjects for negative TV ads.
The study, which took place at the University of Akron's Taylor Institute of Director Marketing, required the participants to be wired up so their reactions could be measured by way of their brain waves.
Midwesterners are resilient, but it is kind of amazing that no one's head exploded.
Though experts have long said negative ads are produced because they work, voters have long claimed to disparage them. Either the consultants are hustling politicians, or we the people aren't being completely honest.
We know from the data we track daily that sports, fires, wrecks, murders and drug raids garner infinitely more clicks than, say, a feature about a middle-schooler knitting blankets for the poor.
Does that mean the latter holds less value? Of course not. If anything, it's quite the opposite. But it isn't what most people necessarily read — it just isn't.