| This study evaluates over 160 televised political advertisements in South Dakota using the Functional Theory of Campaign Discourse (FTCD). South Dakota is different politically for various reasons. These differences in political culture are referred to as "South Dakota Exceptionalism" which is composed of three pillars: niceness, incumbency disadvantage, and a federal versus state electoral discrepancy. The advertisements were unitized into 1256 individual themes prior to being coded. This study investigated the functions (acclaims, attacks, defenses) and topics (policy, character) of the advertisements. Then the functions and topics were tested with other variables for this study: incumbency, level of race (federal/state) and outcome. This study found: Overall South Dakota political ads acclaim more than they attack; winning federal incumbents acclaim more than they attack; winning federal incumbents attack more on policy than on character; the topic of acclaims for winning federal incumbents is different than that of losing incumbents; and the topic of acclaims for winning federal non-incumbents is different than that of losing non-incumbents. |
