Many citizens underestimate the impact of political ads.
They somewhat underestimate the impact of ads on others and vastly underestimate the impact of ads on themselves. Both pundits and citizens spend a lot of time making fun of political commercials. They're short, simple-minded, and as election day approaches, they become more obnoxiously frequent. There seems good reason to ridicule the idea that they affect how people vote and how they think about government and politicians. But a large body of studies carried out in the last 15 years shows quite clearly that political commercials have major effects on people .