Efficacy of inoculation strategies in promoting resistance to political attack messages: Application to direct mail

This investigation examined the potential for the direct mail communication channel to combat the persuasiveness of political attack messages. Inoculation, inoculation‐plus‐reinforcement, and refutation messages were administered to potential voters in a midwestern metropolitan area during the 1988 presidential campaign. The results support the prediction that the use of inoculation via direct mail communication confers resistance to the influence of political attack messages. In addition, the pattern of results of this study indicates that inoculation is more effective than the refutation approach in deflecting the persuasiveness of attack messages.