We study a propaganda campaign sponsored by the Argentine government against the main political challenger in the days preceding the 2015 runoff presidential election. Subjects in the treatment group watched an “ad” that had been aired during soccer transmissions as part of this campaign. They were then asked about their vote intentions. Relative to subjects in the control group, their declared preference for the challenger drops by 6.5 percentage points for a persuasion rate of 11.2%. We find no effects of the three types of defenses employed by the challenger (a positive message unrelated to the “ad”, a reply to the accusations in the “ad”, and a counter-attack). The propaganda effect is driven by women.

我们研究了阿根廷政府在 2015 年总统大选前几天发起的反对主要政治挑战者的宣传活动。治疗组的受试者观看了作为该活动的一部分在足球传输期间播放的“广告”。然后他们被问及他们的投票意图。相对于对照组的受试者，他们宣称的对挑战者的偏好下降了 6.5 个百分点，说服率为 11.2%。我们发现挑战者采用的三种防御类型（与“广告”无关的积极信息、对“广告”中的指控的回复和反击）没有任何影响。宣传效果是由女性推动的。