Alex Fillip Political Visualities Ind. Study March 4, 2016

PACs and Political Ad Tone: The Case of Jeb Bush’s 2016 Campaign vs. Right to Rise USA

Since the passing of Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court case that allows

corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums on political advertisements (ads) and other

political tools, the amount of money spent on political advertising during election cycles has

skyrocketed. This tremendous shift in the American political campaign process has prompted

both public and academic conversations about what interest groups and super PACs are spending

money on when it comes to political campaigns and the possible effects of that spending. During

the 2012 elections and the political races since then, it has become clear that PACs spend at least

a third of their money on advertising for or against candidates (Dooling, 2012). Because PACs

are relatively new, research on their effects has been limited and preliminary. Nonetheless,

political communication scholars have taken to investigating the impacts of PAC-sponsored

advertising and how ads purchased by PACs differ from ads purchased by official candidate

campaigns. All of these studies, most notably by Michael Franz and Paul Freedman (2008),

Conor Dowling and Michael Miller (2014), and Erika Fowler and Travis Ridout (2012), have

used content analytic and experimental design approaches to analyze political ad tone. Each

study has arrived at different conclusions; Franz et al. (2008) find that PAC and interest group

ads are more negative than candidate campaign ads, while Dowling et al.’s (2014) study finds

little evidence to support that conclusion. The purpose of this exploration is to apply a new

methodology – semiotics – to the study of ad tone in candidate-purchased ads versus tone in

PAC-purchased ads.

Presenting former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign as a case

study, I will use a semiotic lens to look at four digital, static ads: two produced by Bush’s official

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2016 campaign and two produced by Right to Rise, a super PAC created to support Bush’s

campaign. The goal with this study is to take a semiotic approach to the question of ad tone and

sponsorship, and to begin to understand whether or not semiotics can help us determine if PACs

produce more negative advertising than candidate campaigns. Past research suggests that PACs,

having to worry less about reputation than the candidates themselves, have begun to absorb the

negative aspects of campaign advertising for the candidates, allowing candidates to remain

positive in the eyes of voters. This past research has been conducted via commonly used political

science methods such as content analysis, surveys, and experiments. For this exploration,

semiotics will be employed to see how signs and symbols make meaning in Bush ads and

whether the meanings communicate positive or negative tone. While looking at four ads and one

candidate for one election cannot provide any conclusive findings, it is a start towards

understanding how semiotics can help in the study of political ad tone and ad sponsorship.

Literature Review

Background: The Campaign Finance System

In the past decade, non-campaign entities labeled independent-expenditure committees –

“super PACs” – have begun to play a larger role in the political campaign system by

consolidating money, power, and influence in an attempt to elect officials. In 2002, the

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act attempted to provide some minor checks on the amount of

money entering the political arena through PACs, but Citizens United vs. Federal Election

Commission (2010) found that those restrictions were a violation of corporations’ and unions’

right to free speech and the court case reopened PACs’ ability to collect and spend unlimited

funds on political campaigns. In the post-Citizens United era, PACs have begun working

alongside a political candidate’s campaign, providing assistance by running ads or support

materials. This spending on ads can have important consequences; according to Karen Johnson-

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Cartee and Gary Copeland (1991), independent expenditures – whether it is advertising or direct

mail – made by PACs in the early stages of campaigns can assist a candidate’s chances of being

elected. In their “lightning rod scenario,” Johnson-Cartee and Copeland assert that negative

advertising undertaken by PACs serves to hinder an opponent’s supporter base without directly

involving or implicating the candidate that the PAC supports. As the next section will show,

researchers have also attempted to analyze whether or not PAC-sponsored advertising is more

negative than campaign-sponsored advertising.

Current Research on Ad Sponsorship & Tone

Unlimited donations and loose rules concerning disclosure mean super PACs operate

largely out of the public eye, which creates concern that PACs may have a significant negative

effect on the tone of campaigns. In one of the most comprehensive studies on this topic to date,

Franz et al. (2008) used a content analytic approach to analyze the tone of commercial PAC ads

versus campaign ads. They had teams of coders at the University of Wisconsin and the

University of Virginia code data collected by TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis

(CMAG). Looking at sets of advertisements from the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, the

coders documented ad tone (positive, negative, contrast). The study ultimately found that the

majority of candidate-funded ads were positive (57%), while a large majority of interest group

ads were purely attack oriented (70%). However, in a similar study using survey experiments,

Dowling et al. (2014) found “little consistent evidence that super PAC ads are more negative or

misleading than candidate ads…that is, the content of super PAC ads is not necessarily all that

different than those of candidate ads” (5). Researchers, all of which have used content analytic or

experimental methodologies, are in disagreement about how tone differs between ads sponsored

by PACs or interest groups and ads sponsored by a candidate’s official campaign. The

incongruity between Franz et al. (2008) and Dowling et al.’s (2014) conclusions could be a result

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of general lack of consensus on how to measure the tone of an ad, which is why a new

methodology may yield noteworthy results. The aim of this exploration is to give an example of

how semiotic methodology may be used to answer the question of ad sponsorship and tone and

to provide a new perspective on the issue. But first, a brief discussion of the consequences of

negative political advertising is warranted.

Why Does Negative Tone In Political Advertising Matter?

Simply put, scholars are concerned with negative advertising because of the implications

for American democracy. When it comes to negative advertising, there are two main competing

hypotheses: Paul Freedman and Kenneth Goldstein (1999) find that negative ads demobilize

voters, while Steven Finkel and John Greer’s (1998) research suggests that exposure to negative

ads stimulates voter turnout. But while negative ads could provide some benefits to voters, most

scholarship suggests that negative ads could lessen a voter’s perception of a candidate. Bruce

Pinkleton (1997), Gina Garramone (1984), and others find that negative ads may produce a

backlash against the sponsor. That is, negative ads lessen a voter’s perception of the ad’s

sponsor. Arguably, a PAC is less concerned about its reputation in the eyes of voters than a

candidate. It follows then that candidates may want to refrain from producing negative attack ads

with their name attached1 and instead let PACs take on the negative ads. This theory, which has

been substantiated by Richard Engstrom and Christopher Kenny (2002) and Fuyuan Shen and

Denis Wu (2002), could explain Franz et al.’s (2008) findings regarding negative ads and PAC

sponsorship. The semiotic analysis in this study may help support or disconfirm Franz et al.’s

hypothesis that PACs have stepped into the negative attack responsibilities of campaigns, and

that finding could add to the conversation about implications for our system of campaigns and

1 Any ad paid for with official campaign funds must include “I’m [candidate’s name] and I approve this message.” This means the candidate’s name is directly connected to the content of the ad.

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elections. To provide context for this case study, the final portion of this literature review gives

background on the 2016 presidential election, Jeb Bush’s campaign, and the Right to Rise PAC.

The 2016 Race & Right to Rise

Jeb Bush was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential

election, but he suspended his campaign on February 20, 2016 after poor performances in the

first set of primaries. Prior to his candidacy, Bush was the head of Right to Rise, a multimillion-

dollar super PAC which would later become the biggest PAC supporting his campaign. Bush

personally raised money for the PAC during his time as head of the committee, and many

political pundits suggest that Bush likely knew of his pending campaign announcement while

raising that money (Isenstadt, 2015). Under the law, PACs can support candidates, but cannot

coordinate their expenditures with them; therefore, Bush stepped down from his leadership

position in Right to Rise before submitting his official campaign announcement. Right to Rise

raised over $100 million in support of Bush and produced many ads on behalf of the candidate.

But throughout his campaign, the close relationship between Bush and Right to Rise raised

questions about post-Citizens United politics and how borders separating presidential campaigns

and PACs may be more porous than the law suggests.

Research Question & Methodology

The research question for this investigation is, “How does tone differ between digital

static ads sponsored by Jeb Bush’s official 2016 campaign and ads sponsored by the Right to

Rise super PAC?” To begin to answer this question, I will use semiotics, the study of signs,

symbols, and signification2, to look at how meaning and messages are created in digital, non-

moving ads by both Jeb Bush 2016 and Right to Rise. In past research, scholars coding for

2 Here, I’m using Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Pierce’s conception of a “sign” as having two parts: a signifier which carries the message and a signified which is the concept communicated by the message.

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negative and positive tone have looked at the mix of positive and negative statements (Finkel and

Geer, 1998), idea units (Jamieson and Waldman, 2000), or the ad as a whole (Franz et al, 2008).

In this analysis, a negative ad is defined as one that attacks another candidate, while a positive ad

supports a candidate. Semiotics is useful here to gain a richer understanding of how the signs in

political digital ads add up and form negative and positive messages. For the purposes of this

study, positive and negative tone will be determined based on the sign systems apparent in the

ads and the messages they convey.

In this case study, I look at four digital, static ads collected from political digital ad

aggregators (www.p2016.org and www.blog.4president.org) between September 1, 2015 and

December 15, 2016. This time range was selected because it contains the bulk of the pre-

primaries race and encompasses a large group of ads. The four ads were selected randomly, with

two of the ads paid for and produced by the Jeb Bush 2016 campaign and two paid for by Right

to Rise. Using semiotic methodology and with an eye towards signs and connotation, I analyzed

the ads for typography, color, shapes, and content (including language, bodies, etc.). These

categories will be recorded in a table (Appendix 1). All of the signs and levels of connotation

identified through the semiotic reading will be taken together to form a judgment about ad tone.

Through this semiotic analysis, I expect for my findings to align with Franz et al.’s (2008)

conclusion that PAC advertising is more negative than campaign advertising because of the

theory that PACs are less worried about their reputation and therefore take on the negativity in

place of campaigns.

The secondary research question in this case study is loosely, “What can semiotics bring

to the study of political ad tone as it relates to ad sponsorship?” The use of semiotics as a method

of uncovering political ad tone is worth discussion, because semiotics may have benefits or

disadvantages when it comes assessing or measuring tone. Either way, this case study and the

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following discussion could have implications for how political communication scholars evaluate

the usefulness of semiotics in answering questions about political ad tone.

Ad Analysis

This analysis looks at four digital, static ads: Jeb Bus 2016’s 1) “All in for Jeb,” and 2)

“The Jeb Bush Hat Trick,” and Right to Rise’s 3) “The Jeb Story,” and 4) “Total Victory.”

Jeb Bush 2016 Official Campaign Ads

In the first ad (Image 1) released by the Bush campaign on September 19, 2015, “All in

for Jeb,” a big red rectangular “Join Now” button dominates the banner, with a simple

photograph of Bush looking slightly away from the camera smiling. In the photograph, Bush is

wearing a light blue shirt and he appears to be sitting in a diner or a similar room filled with

people. In terms of color, the light blue shirt that Bush wears in the photograph is an important

sign. The color blue operates as a polysemic sign; blue could be a signifier for patriotism,

referencing the American flag, or it could be a signifier for the concept of “blue collar” work

ethic. In the latter interpretation, the blue shirt associates Bush with “blue collar” or everyday

American life, establishing proximity between himself and the average voter. Therefore, the blue

shirt could be constructing a message about how Bush is just like the everyday American.

In the photograph, Bush is presumably looking at another person while smiling. His

upturned mouth operates as a sign where the signifier is the position of his mouth and the

signified is happiness or familiarity. Similarly, the photograph appears to be taken while Bush is

sitting in a diner booth or other populated setting. Diners are strongly associated with the run-of-

the-mill or middle America, so the diner in the ad could signify Americana and specifically rural

American life. It could also, however, be a symbol of nostalgia.3 The interpretation of the diner

3 There is potentially a Barthesian myth in the symbol of the diner because in American society, there is the notion that even as a stranger, we can feel at home when seated at the counter of a diner alongside regulars.

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as signifying Americana fits well with the “blue collar” sign and together the signs form a

message about Bush’s openness and ease with the average American. Overall, the major signs –

the blue shirt and diner setting – create positive meaning and tone. None of the signs contain

negative messages (i.e. attacks on opponents). Instead, they contain positive messages about

Bush’s status as “just like you,” or an ordinary American.

The second ad (Image 2) paid for and published by the Jeb Bush 2016 official campaign

on September 14, 2015 appears to utilize a photograph of Bush taken at the same event as the

first “All in for Jeb” ad. At the top of the ad, text reads “The Jeb Bush Hat Trick,” followed by a

bar graph showing the amount of tax cuts Bush and his competitors are responsible for, a list of

three assertions (“#1 Tax Cutter,” “#1 Job Creator,” etc.), the Jeb Bush logo, and a red box for

viewers to click in order to “Learn more at Jeb2016.com.” On the level of color, red can be a

sign for the Republican Party where the color red is a signifier and the signified is the GOP, so

the use of red in the ad serves to tie Bush close to the Republican Party. The red also functions in

difference to the yellow bars on the graph representing tax cuts by Bush’s opponents. The color

yellow becomes a sign of inferiority because it is not red, and therefore Bush stands apart from

the others in the ad. The resulting message could be that Bush is the true Republican in a group

of “yellow,” diluted Republican candidates.

The photograph of Bush used in the ad shows the candidate looking slightly away from

the camera, talking to someone with strong eye contact and an unsmiling mouth. The eye contact

and mouth positioning work together as a sign of seriousness. With this sign, the message of the

ad becomes about Bush’s competence. In addition, the wedding ring on Bush’s finger is

emphasized in the photograph. On one level, the ring functions as a sign of marriage and Bush’s

role as a husband, but on a deeper level, the ring connotes stability, integrity, and longevity.

These characteristics are thus transferred to Bush through the ad. Overall, a semiotic analysis of

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Jeb Bush’s “Hat Trick” campaign ad reveals a positive, but slightly negative tone. The signs

encompassed in the photograph of Bush – eye contact, mouth position, blue shirt, wedding ring –

create positive meanings, but the connotations attached to the colors red and yellow produce

negative messages because they represent an attack on other candidates.

Right to Rise Ads

The first Right to Rise ad (Image 3), called “The Jeb Story,” was published on December

9, 2015. It features a photograph of Bush in profile, looking to the left. The photo is overlaid

with white, and light appears to be hitting Bush directly in the face. Text on the ad reads, “The

stakes couldn’t be higher. One candidate can move us forward,” along with “The Jeb Story” in

big letters. First, the color red is only used for “Jeb,” which signifies Bush’s alignment with the

Republican Party. Second, the color white connotes reverence and purity, and by shrouding

Bush’s face and body in white, those characteristics are transferred to the candidate. In American

culture, white can also signify heroism where black signifies anti-heroism. Therefore, the color

white in the ad may produce a message about Bush as a champion. In conjunction with the

significance of the color white, the direction of Bush’s gaze and the light on his face are signs

that form a syntagm.

In the ad, Bush’s face in in profile and he is looking to the left. The direction of his gaze

could signify movement backwards; by using a photograph of Bush facing left, the ad makes it

appear as if Bush is looking backwards into the past (in comparison to if he was facing right,

which would signify looking forward to the future and the new). In a political context, Bush’s

leftward gaze could be a message about his promise to take America back to Republican

leadership.4 The light illuminating Bush’s face is a sign with similar meaning as the color white,

4 Interestingly, the text implies the Bush can “move us forward,” which seems at odds with the direction of his gaze in the photograph. In my interpretation, there is a conflict between the

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but the light adds another layer of signification: it could connote godliness (“light shines on the

godly”). In this way, the ad could contain a message about Bush’s dedication to his religion, or

his presumably God-approved status. The signs of the color white, the direction of Bush’s gaze,

and the light on his face, all work together to create a positive message. Semiotically, the ad does

not attack but rather focuses on Bush and the signs show that he is placed both literally and

symbolically in a positive light.

The final ad (Image 4), “Total Victory” was released by Right to Rise on December 1,

2015. It includes a photograph of Bush speaking and looking up, next to a quote by Bush that

reads, “…We should lead to destroy ISIS…You do it with the stated objective of total victory.”

The words “destroy ISIS” and “total victory” are in red, with “total victory” bigger than the rest

of the text. The red could signify the Republican Party, but it could also connote aggressiveness

or power. Because they are in red, “destroy ISIS” and “total victory” could have hostile

significance beyond the meaning of the words themselves, which are hostile as well.

In addition, the photograph in the ad shows Bush looking up with a downturned mouth.

As identified earlier, a downturned mouth is a sign of seriousness. Combined with the

significance of the color red, his frown (or lack of a smile) could connote might or strength. Also

in the photograph, Bush’s hand is raised as he speaks; the raised hand could symbolize control or

even power. As a result, the message of the signs in Bush’s face and body language – as well as

the language in the text – is that he has the severity and strength needed to take down ISIS and

win the Republican nomination. Based on the signs, this ad is mostly positive because the

meanings support Bush without attacking other candidates. However, the language of destruction

and significance of the color red could be semiotically interpreted as negative.

signification of the leftward direction of his gaze and the language of movement forward in the text.

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Discussion & Conclusion

Using semiotics, this case study has found that, in a limited analysis of four digital, static

ads, Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign ads were positive and slightly negative, and Right to Rise’s PAC

ads were also positive and slightly negative. This does not support Franz et al.’s (2008) finding

that PAC ads are more negative than campaign ads; instead this semiotic analysis aligns with

Dowling et al.’s (2014) finding that in terms of tone, PAC ads are not necessarily significantly

different than campaign ads. The Right to Rise ads, while generally positive in tone, feature signs

that push the conventional campaign ad envelope. For example, the message about Bush’s

godliness apparent in the light shining on his face in the “Jeb Story” ad is a message that the

Bush campaign may not be able to produce without receiving the criticism that Bush has called

himself godly. This follows and adds credence to Pinkleton (1997) and Garramone’s (1984)

theories about how PACs, less worried about their reputations, take on some tasks – such as

hyperbolizing or over-embellishing the candidate – that campaigns are unable to accomplish

without backlash. Jeb Bush and Right to Rise share a relationship unlike most other campaigns

and PACs, which suggests that this might be a unique case. That is, Bush may be tied too closely

to Right to Rise, and thus the PAC doesn’t risk attacking opponents through ads in case that

negativity falls back on Bush. In some ways, it also seems that the PAC may be functioning as an

arm of the campaign, which has important implications for campaign finance law and the

American political campaign system. Under law, PACs and campaigns may not collaborate, but

Bush’s unusual past connection to Right to Rise raises questions about how a PAC formerly

owned by a candidate may assist that same candidate during a campaign. Nonetheless, through a

semiotic analysis, I have found that Jeb Bush campaign ads were very similar in tone to Right to

Rise PAC ads, though the PAC ads arguably portray Bush in a positive, but more heightened

way than the campaign ads. As this analysis only includes a small sample of ads, I cannot make

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any conclusions about ad tone and sponsorship, but I can begin to make observations about the

usefulness of semiotics in measuring ad tone.

Traditionally, political communication researchers use content analysis or experimental

design (i.e. surveys) to measure the tone of a political ad. In this study, I’ve used semiotics,

which provides a toolset and vocabulary for reading meanings in ads. Instead of having coders

make a judgment about whether an ad is positive or negative, semiotics allows us to interpret

how signs make meaning and tone in an ad; instead of a coder saying, “this ad feels negative to

me,” semiotics allows us to say, “this ad contains signs of hostility that produce negative

meaning.” By using semiotics rather than content analysis or surveys, we can get a deeper look at

the signs within an ad that produce negative and positive tone. We can start to understand where

interpretations of tone come from – it is not just that an ad ‘feels’ negative, it is that the signs

produce meanings that communicate negativity. Coders or survey takers are theoretically doing

semiotics without consciously thinking of parts of an ad as signs. They are interpreting and

making holistic judgments without the work explicitly laying out the signs and symbols.

Semiotics can help get at the reasoning underlying coders’ interpretations of political ads.

However, semiotics is also potentially disadvantageous as a method for measuring ad tone

because there is a leap to be made between reading the color red as a sign for hostility and

interpreting the message of the ad as slightly negative. Hostility alone does not produce negative

tone unless it is directed at a political opponent, so the connection between a semiotic sign and

“tone” is problematic and requires further research. While this case study is merely an opening

exploration into how semiotics can be used to look at political ad tone and the differences in tone

between campaign and PAC ads, the work here suggests that there is more research to be done

on semiotics, ad tone, and sponsorship.

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Image 1 Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

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Works Cited

All In For Jeb [Advertisement]. (2015, September 19). Retrieved from http://www.p2016.org/blogads/drudge0615bush17922240845977764682.jpg

Dooling, W. (2012, December 4). Where Did All those Super PAC Dollars Go? 1/3 of All

Outside Money Moved Through Handful of Media Firm. PRWatch. Retrieved from http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/12/11868/where-did-all-those-super-pac-dollars-go-13-all-outside-money-moved-through-handf

Dowling, C. & Miller, M. (2014). Super PAC! Money, Elections, and Voters after Citizens

United. New York, NY: Routledge. Engstrom, R., & Kenny, C. (2002). The Effects of Independent Expenditures in Senate Elections.

Political Research Quarterly, 55(4), 885-905. Finkel, S., & Greer, J. (1998). A Spot Check: Casting Doubt on the Demobilizing Effect of

Attack Ads. American Journal of Political Science, 42(2), 573-595. Fowler, E. & Ridout, T. (2013). Negative, Angry, and Ubiquitous: Political Advertising in 2012.

The Forum, 10(4), 51-61. Franz, M., & Freedman, P. (2008). Campaign Advertising and American Democracy.

Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Garramone, G. (1984). Voter Responses to Negative Political Ads. Journalism Quarterly, 61(2),

250-259. Isenstadt, A. (2015, April 8). Jeb Bush’s $100M May. Politico. Retrieved from

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/jeb-bush-right-to-rise-super-pac-campaign-117753

Jamieson, K. H., & Waldman, P. (2000). Everything You Think You Know About Politics…And

Why You’re Wrong. New York, NY: Basic Books. Johnson-Cartee, K. & Copeland, G. (1991). Negative Political Advertising: Coming of Age. New

York, NY: Routledge. Pinkleton, B. (1997). The Effects of Negative Comparative Political Advertising on Candidate

Evaluations. Journal of Advertising, 26(1), 19-29. Shen, F., & Wu, Denis. (2002). Effects of Soft-Money Issue Advertisements on Candidate

Evaluation and Voting Preference. Mass Communication and Society, 5(4), 395-410. The Jeb Bush Hat Trick [Advertisement]. (2015, September 14). Retrieved from

http://www.p2016.org/blogads/bush091415300x600.png

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The Jeb Story [Advertisement]. (2015, December 9). Retrieved from http://blog.4president.org/2016/2015/12/right-to-rise-pac-jeb-bush-the-jeb-story-2016-presidential-campaign-blog-ads-des-moines-register-december-9-2015.html

Total Victory [Advertisement]. (2015, December 4). Retrieved from

http://blog.4president.org/2016/2015/12/right-to-rise-usa-jeb-bush-2016-blog-ads-on-des-moines-register-and-new-hampshire-union-leader-websites.html

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Appendix 1

Color Typography Shape Content Bush 2016 Ad 1 – “All in for Jeb”

• Red for “Join Now” button

• White for text • Light blue shirt

• All in sans serif except logo

• Big rectangle for “Join Now”

• Bush looking slightly away from camera, smiling a bit

• Seems to be in room with everyday people

Bush 2016 Ad 2 – “The Jeb Bush Hat Trick”

• Red used for “Hat Trick,” logo, “learn more” button, and bar in graph that represents Bush

• Light blue shirt • White text

• All sans serif except logo

• Circle for bar graph

• Rectangles throughout rest

• Bush looking slightly away from camera, serious expression

• Wedding ring emphasized? • Bar graph visually

positions him over his competitors (+ repeated use of “#1”)

• Talking to someone Right to Rise Ad 1 – “The Jeb Story”

• Entire ad in white, Jeb in white shirt

• “Jeb” in red text, rest in black text

• All in sans serif

• None • Bush in profile, serious expression

• Light on Bush’s face • Text reads: “The stakes

couldn’t be higher. One candidate can move us forward.”

Right to Rise Ad 2 – “Total Victory”

• Blue background with stars

• Big red text on “Destroy ISIS” and “Total victory”

• All sans serif

• None, except stars in background

• Bush talking, looking up • Text reads “We should

lead to destroy ISIS…you do it with the stated objective of total victory” and attributes it to Bush