Election Advertising – rants from the Cafestudy Soapbox

When we asked you what you thought about the political parties advertising in the run up to the election later this year, we clearly hit a nerve with a lot of you! A good excuse for a rant it seems – and here are some of your views:

It’s all spin

“Ads can’t even pretend to be informative and unbiased. They are ads after all, they have not been funded to simply ‘inform’ the public” (Annie)

You are cynical about the messages delivered to voters via advertising. Nobody believes what they say – words you came up with to describe the content of the ads include deceit, lies, and false information. You think that they are only saying what they want you to hear. You want to be educated about what the parties are offering, but do not believe that advertising is the way to do this.

Nothing more than a slanging match

“Political advertising bags out the other party and doesn’t really tell you what each parties policies are about” (Hawkey)

None of the blame game rubbish, you say! A slanging match doesn’t ring true, and makes you even less likely to believe the messages.

It’s a waste of tax-payers money

The other issue which riles you is the money spent on advertising. According to you there should be a ceiling on amount of money spent on political ads – money that you believe should be spent on other things.

What would work then?

“A live political speech and/or debate with question time would be suffice to allow voters to make their decision” (Ram)

Instead of advertising, you believe that political debates, news and current affairs programmes are the best way to inform voters. Instead of agenda-driven and ‘biased’ advertising, you want to be presented with unbiased information and be allowed to make up your own minds. Live debates with questions from an audience are where the real facts are uncovered - and there is nowhere for the policitians to hide!