Political advertising in democratic Taiwan: audiences' perspectives on political figures through image-building advertisements

One can gain important insights into the effects of political advertising by looking at decoding and interpretation in audience perception studies. This essay considers two genres of political advertisement-celebrity endorsement and emotional appeal-through six focus groups formed by either Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) or Kuomintang (KMT) identifiers. It focuses on three key themes for comparison: the participants’ involvement, their interpretations of the key messages, and opinions that were important to them. This study aims to further the understanding of how political advertisements are interpreted and to bring some practical knowledge to the field by comparing the perspectives of audiences of differing political orientations.