Good Publicity vs. Bad Publicity

With the primary election in full swing the media always has something to write about, whether it is good or bad. They can cover stories on what each candidate said, what they didn't say, what happened at their rallies, how many delegates they have received and the list goes on and on. Sometimes the media can give good publicity or bad publicity to a candidate, but does either publicity dramatically change the progress a candidate is making? Whether it is good publicity or bad publicity the candidate is still getting attention. They are still getting more media coverage over other candidates and they are getting more people to take notice in them.  A lot of times in these elections people already have their minds made up on who they are voting (that is not the case for all) and the media isn't going to change this. Not only do the news stations and reporters factor into this, but social media plays a big role in the good publicity vs. bad publicity. From Twitter to Facebook many people are giving the candidates they do not like more attention than the ones they actually like. They are sharing obnoxious videos or pictures of candidates they are opposed to for the simple reason of it being obnoxious. Yet, in doing this they are giving more attention to this candidate than they should be. Sometimes the information they are sharing isn't even true! Some posts that they share have false information that they did not know was false. Instead they should be sharing posts, pictures, or videos of candidates they want to win. Jonah Berger a professor from Wharton School did research on whether bad publicity can actually effect a product negatively. In his research he used the publicity surrounding the GAP logo being changed. Berger found out that when this new logo was introduced to the public tit received very bad critics. he found that although the public did not like the new logo it had little effects on whether people still shopped their or not. Berger also found that all this attention seemed to give the GAP more attention, which led to more people shopping there,  "Evidently this boils down to increased awareness: the mere act of introducing something to a broader public — even by saying that it stinks — increases the chances that more members of that public will want it anyway." This directly relates to the candidates in an election. People continuously talking about a candidate they do not like rather than the one they do like is only promoting that candidate even more. This bad publicity does not directly have an effect on how well the candidate is going to do when it comes time to voting. Berger also learned through his research that sometimes when bad publicity is being put out there it gets changed as time goes on. Sometimes what is being said is misunderstood by some of the public and the bad publicity now becomes false information. When bad news is being spread through thousands of people, the information is sometimes changed.  

For example if I were to just scroll through my Facebook feed, not reading what the content actually says, I would assume that many of my Facebook friends are in favor of Donald Trump, but that is not the case when I take a closer look. Many friends are sharing pictures, articles, or videos or things Trump said that they don't agree with. They share these posts they do not like because they want their friends to disagree with these statements also. They hope that by sharing these posts it will somehow change their friends opinion to take the stand that they do as well. Some of these posts that they are sharing are not even accurate information, which is very misleading. By sharing these posts they are only giving more attention to candidates like Trump who they do not even like. An example of a post that has been shared multiple times on many social media site would be this picture (below) of Trump talking about Republican voters in an interview with People Magazine in 1998. This post went viral a little while back only to learn that Trump never actually said this. It was a made up post to try and get Republican voters, angry enough with him to not vote for him. This post gave Trump so much attention because people could not believe that he said this and some were angry. When this post turned out to be false, Trump was still getting attention and people realized they no longer could be angry because of this post.

Now there is the other hand when it comes to a political election bad publicity is going to have an effect on the candidates. You can say that they need a good reputation to gain voters and the bad publicity will do nothing but hurt them. There is two sides to good publicity and bad publicity and whether you want to argue if they're both good or not, but when it comes down to it and publicity these candidates are getting is giving them more attention and name recognition. People will start taking interests in these candidates because they hear lots of news about them. And in this tricky system of trying to become president, getting attention from the people is an important part. 

Sources:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0b/28/3a/0b283a5a331d8fec94b3ffdd94e658ba.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31fob-consumed-t.html?_r=0

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/when-bad-publicity-good