Il videostyle nell'advertising televisivo presidenziale negli USA: il caso delle elezioni 2016

This dissertation focuses on the characteristics of televised presidential campaign advertising. Since television sets entered voters' homes, politicians and more specifically US presidential candidates understood the importance of this new medium, able to reach wider audiences. The first chapter aims to describe the role of presidential spots, that can be considered as a particular form of paid communication used to sell candidates and their political positions and beliefs to the electorate. Many considerations have been made on this point, from the characteristics of political advertising, to political cynicism and persuasion. This aspect has been connected to mass communication theories too. The first chapter also provides a brief excursus of the evolution of presidential campaigns and the mass media. The final part considers the modern evolution of advertising, since, even if it is not the focus of the work, it is not possible to completely ignore the ongoing transformations caused by the digital environment. The second chapter illustrates the characteristics of presidential videostyle, analyzing its main components, namely verbal, nonverbal and television production contents. All these aspects are then presented in an historical frame, considering the evolutions of videostyle from 1952 to the present. Videostyle characteristics are then presented analyzing the differences that may occur according to the political position of the candidate (incumbent or challenger), the political party (Republican or Democrat), and gender. The third chapter focuses on the aspects of positivity and negativity in presidential commercials, and tries to provide an explanation for the effects obtained by attacking the opponent. A short discussion on the past use of negativity in presidential advertising is presented too. Finally, after this long theoretical analysis, the dissertation concretely analyzes some spots by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign, trying to provide a clear illustration of their characteristics and techniques. The theoretical background will be useful to see whether videostyle characteristics and trends have remained unchanged or not.