Negative campaigning

Common card · No. 309614

Negative campaigning is the process of deliberately spreading negative information about someone or something to damage their public image. A colloquial and more derogatory term for the practice is mudslinging. Deliberate spreading of such information may be motivated either by a genuine desire to warn others against real dangers or deficiencies, or by the campaigner's dishonest attempt to win in political, business or other spheres of competition against an honest rival. However, if the mudslinging statements can be proved to be correct, mudslinging takes the moral dimension of an opponent's duty serving the greater good by exposing the weakness of the other candidate. The public image of an entity can be defined as reputation, esteem, respect, acceptance of the entity's appearance, values and behaviour by the general public of a given territory and/or a social group, possibly within time limits. As target groups of public and their values differ, so negativity or positivity of a public...

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