A negative advertisement is one that focuses upon a rival product, in this case a rival election candidate or party, in order to point out its flaws and to persuade the public not to buy it (or vote for it). Sometimes there is an explicit comparison with the product or candidate in whose interest the ad is being produced, but some of the most effective ads simply attack the opposition without revealing their own sympathies. The perpetual discussion about the impact of negative or ‘attack’ ads on politics gained force during and after the 2004 US Presidential Election, which saw a surprising amount of venom on both sides. This followed some similarly negative campaigns for the 2002 Senate elections; for example, in Georgia Democratic Senator Max Cleland lost his reelection bid partly thanks to negative ads which associated him with Osama Bin Laden (on the grounds that this war veteran, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, had voted against President Bush's homeland security bills).
This topic focuses on whether steps should be taken to ban negative political advertising. Issues of enforcement – fines and levels thereof, pulling of broadcasters' and newspaper licenses, warnings before punishment etc, the body responsible for enforcement – are left to the proposition team.


What do you think??

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The political environment is mired in negativism that turns people off politics and creates the impression that all politicians are corrupt or incompetent or both. Things aren’t going to improve on their own – in fact, they’ll probably get worse. We ought to stop the nastiness by ruling that only positive advertising is allowed. Only then will people really reengage with politics. Politics should be about issues – about policies and ideology. This rule would help push the debate back to that by stopping personal attacks and requiring people to say something positive about their own position, rather than knocking someone else’s.

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i think they should focus on what they personally want to achieve instead of slagging off their rivals they all talk enough rubbish anyway without the need for that

sorry dont do politics

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i love politics- half the fun is slagging off the other party's, most people realise its rubbish being said and thoses who don't probably aren't old enough to vote!!!

the problem this country has is the two so called big parties are the same. New labour old torries. They both have the same policies. Then the lib dems they just jump on what ever bandwagon that is going. We don't have a party that will do anything different when they get to power.

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