Instrumental background music and the perception of the qualities of politicians in audio-visual advertising

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a laboratory study whose aim was to describe how the character of background music of audio-visual political advertising shapes the watchers’ perception of the qualities of politicians. Three groups of participants watched the same Polish political spots accompanied with different music: a) majestic; b) sentimental with patriotic connotations; c) sentimental without patriotic connotations; d) energetic. The conducted analysis has shown that the character of the background music can affect the viewers’ opinions about some of the features of the politicians in question.