The use of emotional appeals in political ads: The analysis of advertising films produced by political parties in 7th june 2015 General Elections

The basic purpose of political ads is to affect voter's thougts, beliefs, attitude and behaviours towards a political party or candidate. For this purpose, political parties and candidates deliver several messages to voters by ads. Depending on the position of political party or candidate and the political atmosphere of the term, sometimes these messages contain rational appeals which address voter's logic, benefit and profit or sometimes contain emotional appeals which adress voter's feelings and emotions. In this frame, the purpose of this research is to reveal appeal catagories, emotional appeal types and appeal tones which is used in political ads. Within the frame of research purpose, 265 advertising films which were produced by the political parties in 7th June 2015 General Elections analysed with content anaylsis method. Acording to the research findings, in the campaign period, the rate of using rational and emotional appeals are very close to each other. However, it is seen that there are differences between political parties. Findings put forward that the most prefered emotional appeal is enthusiasm appeal and the least one is sadness appeal. Finally, it is seen that in the campaign period, predominantly positive appeal tones were prefered by the political parties. Keywords: Political Advertising, Appeal, Rational Appeal, Emotional Appeal