John Geer, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, has been awarded the Goldsmith Book Prize for In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns.
The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University awards the Goldsmith Book Prize for the academic book published in the last year that best fulfills the objective of improving government through an examination of the intersection between press, politics and public policy.
The Goldsmith Awards Program was established in 1991 to encourage a “more insightful, spirited public debate about government, politics and the press,” according to the center’s website. This prize recognizes distinguished research in areas that include free speech, public television, race and campaign advertising.
Geer’s research shows that negative ads actually play an important role in the democratic political process. For the book, he conducted an in-depth analysis of negative advertising in presidential campaigns from 1960 to 2004 and found that the frequency of attack in presidential ads by both Democrats and Republicans has been on the rise the last 40 years.
In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns has been published by University of Chicago Press. More information about the book is available at: www.press.uchicago.edu.
Media Contact: Ann Marie Deer Owens, (615) 322-NEWS
annmarie.owens@vanderbilt.edu