Music has the power to affect us emotionally, and those who create political advertising have long known of this power.

In the fall of 2000, MENC member Cathi Wilson, then a doctoral student at the University of Missouri--Columbia, was watching the local television news, and a political ad came on the screen. “I already knew how I was going to vote,” she says, “so I turned away from the TV to do something else, and suddenly I heard music by Aaron Copland! My attention was riveted back to the ad, and all I could think was, ‘Why is this music in a political ad?  Who are they targeting?’ My dissertation topic was born.”

For her research, Wilson had three classes of sociology students (286 people in all) look at three versions of one of three different negative political ads. Negative ads were chosen because they tend to be more memorable than positive ones. One ad had no accompanying music, one had congruent music (music with negative connotations appropriate to the subject), and the third had incongruent (positive, upbeat) music.

Positive music with a negative ad elicited the most favorable response of the three possibilities. Viewers said the music made them “feel warm about the subject,” even though the ad content was negative. “Cheerful and victorious” music made viewers want to vote for the person in the ad “even if the message was awful,” said one student.

Do your students know when they’re being manipulated by advertising? Perhaps this would be a good discussion topic in your classroom.

This material here is based on the dissertation of Cathi C. Wilson, “The Effects of Background Music on Viewers’ Perceptions of Political Campaign Television Advertisements,” accepted in August 2003 by the University of Missouri--Columbia. Wilson is research analyst at a polling firm in Alexandria, Virginia, and a consultant for Youth Leadership Initiative, administered by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Resource:  The Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI) provides civics education resources for teachers of students of all ages. Music educators and classroom teachers can access these free lesson plans. Visit YLI Web site (http://youthleadership.net/index.jsp) to sign up.

--Ella Wilcox, October 15, 2008, © MENC: The National Association for Music Education (www.menc.org)