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2022 Campaign Advertising Highlights: What Was and Wasn’t Featured in Issue Discussion on Television

And its implications for policy to promote population health Campaign advertising – on television, online, through social media platforms, and even at the gas pump – remains a centrally important method through which candidates for office (and the groups that support them) convey to voters their policy accomplishments and priorities and those...

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2022 Campaign Advertising Highlights: Understanding Themes in Limited Messaging on Climate Change and Critical Race Theory

By Steven Moore Democrats and Republicans do not agree on much when it comes to politics. However, there does seem to be agreement from members of both parties that the country is on the wrong track, with a slim and broad majority of Democrats and Republicans, respectively, endorsing this idea.

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2022 Campaign Advertising Highlights: Child Tax Credit References Largely Absent in Ads

By Erika Franklin Fowler, Natália de Paula Moreira, and Jielu Yao As the 2022 midterm elections race to their conclusion on Tuesday, there has been a lot of discussion about the content and issue focus of the ads flooding the airwaves, with abortion topping the list for Democrats while Republican messaging has closed with an emphasis on government...

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COVID-19 PSAs on TV in 2020 were Associated with the Political Orientation of Communities in which they Aired

Since early in the pandemic, Republicans and Democrats have exhibited different attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward the COVID-19 pandemic. These beliefs have even translated into divergent mortality, with a study released last week showing that after vaccinations became widely available, Republicans had higher death rates than Democrats.

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Federally-affiliated Public Service Announcements (PSAs) During the Early Period of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Our team, led by Margaret Tait, recently published the results of a study exploring public service announcements (PSAs) sponsored by the federal government and airing on TV during the early months of the pandemic, from March through December of 2020. The study is available open access in Preventive Medicine Reports. 

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Rapid Response Media Research will Promote Equity

By Jim Hanchett, Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy Citing the urgent need for more effective and equitable health communication, three universities are collaborating on a unique research endeavor that will quickly identify developing public health issues, address conflicting messages and counter misinformation, funded with a...

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Local TV News Coverage of Racial Disparities in COVID-19 During the First Wave of the Pandemic

Our team recently published the results of a study exploring local TV news coverage of racial disparities in COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic in Race and Social Problems (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-022-09372-5). This study examined how local TV news stories attributed causes and solutions for COVID-19-related racial health and...

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COMM Team Leads Web Convenings to Connect Research to Journalists and Practitioners, Identify New Research Priorities

On December 2 and December 10, 2021, our team convened audiences of journalists, communication professionals, researchers and advocates to learn about and discuss research findings. On December 2, the team led a discussion on Storytelling and the Social Safety Net, while the session on December 10 focused on Communicating about Race, Class, and...

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Cumulative Exposure to Political Campaign Ads about Crime Increases Crime Worry among Republicans

In a recently published study in The International Journal of Press/Politics, our team of researchers, led by Jiawei Liu, examined the content of political campaign ads about crime during the 2016 U.S. election cycle, and the consequences of cumulative exposure to political campaign ads about crime on crime worry.

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