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The 2016 presidential campaign in the United States was marked by widespread interference by Russian agents. The interference was especially prominent in digital media. This indicates the possible need for better regulation. To investigate the problem, I examined the legal and regulatory history of US Federal campaign regulation. While these regulations require various disclosures and disclaimers, and set some spending limits, they do not cover advertising messages. More to the point, the disclosure and disclaimer requirements for digital ads are limited and easily circumvented. Possibly because of this, political advertising in digital media has increased dramatically in recent years. I examine current proposals for improved regulation and make recommendations for changes in Federal regulation and in oversight by nonpartisan groups.

Really creative posts on the social media accounts of brands or political parties can produce gratifyingly viral results that can boost brand engagement, loyalty, profits and votes. This makes it a highly attractive new marketing tool. However, when brands or parties get creativity on social media wrong it can damage reputation. This chapter examines two aspects of this trade-off between the viral and the virtuous. Firstly, the authors explore the regulations around labelling brand posts as adverts and show that they are very unclear, tempting brands to bend the rules or allowing them to inadvertently break them. Secondly, the authors consider memes: a content marketing technique widely used in political and commercial brand posts. The authors analyse the three creative elements core to memes along with successful and unsuccessful examples. The authors end by suggesting that regulators clarify the codes and invite readers to weigh up the pros and cons of using creative content marketing in brand posts.

This research analyzes how ad formats are incorporated into the structure of radio programming and provides a scheme for classifying advertisements in light of the overall organization of the radio programming schedule.

This chapter consists of three parts. The first part presents the main ad formats aired on the radio. The second discusses the challenges for classifying ad formats based on the characteristics usually employed in most studies. Finally, the third part of the chapter proposes a new taxonomic basis for the classification of radio advertising. Scholars from Spain and the United States provide the theoretical framework that serves as a main foundation for this work. However, Brazilian data forms the empirical basis for the classification of the ad formats in this research.

The approach moves the description of ad formats from an individual definition of each type of announcement – the ad formats – toward a broad analysis of radio advertisements, which groups the set of compositions in ad meta formats. The meta formats are distinguishable by the distribution mode or insertion mode of the ads in the radio programming.

The chapter presents an original taxonomy, which allows the development of a general framework regarding the advertising typology aired on the radio.

Future research could use this taxonomy to attend to the new landscape created by the changing electronic media and its influence on the analog radio programming.

Drawing on the theoretical framework of Grabe and Bucy (2009), this chapter presents the findings of an exploratory study concerning the visual self-presentation strategies that the political leaders of the two main political parties in Greece (Syriza and New Democracy) employed in their political adverts on YouTube during the campaign for the 2019 European Parliamentary elections. The findings illustrate that, despite the fact that both leaders made equal use of the two master frames, of the ideal candidate and the populist campaigner, their visual strategies differed in the emphasis given to the various subdimensions of the visual framework. Both leaders attempted to project a public persona characterised by ordinariness and professionalism. Tsipras used a series of spots through which he sought to both ‘renew’ his relationship with the electorate and reinforce perceptions of his statesmanship as a widely respected political leader. Mitsotakis' visual strategy was primarily based on building a more relatable image and strengthening his leadership profile, as well as the frequent use of patriotic symbols.