Five Man Electrical Band summed up election time best in their 1971 hit, “Signs.”
“Sign, sign, everywhere a sign! Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind.”
Election time strings mini-billboards along our roadways and in our neighborhoods. Sign wars have been ongoing for centuries, but what is the motive behind displaying signs that advertise our candidates?
“In this enlightened age of television, radio, mailed and Internet promotion of every candidate from U.S. president to Mosquito Control commissioner, is this ancient method of advertising still worthwhile? Do you find opinion-swaying messages in those gluts of signs?” asked Bob Ryan, a guest columnist for the Tampa Bay Times.
Ryan’s column called to ban election signs on city levels, calling them a advantage only to print shops. He questioned whether a sign somewhere on a local highway had ever cultivated someone’s decision at the polls.
Strangely enough, this “ancient method” has more than doubled over the past quarter century, despite advances in technology. According to research conducted by the American National Election Studies data in 2008, aggregate rates of yard displays were at nearly 9 percent from 1984 to 1988, only to reach 21 percent in 2004 to 2008.
John T. Tierney, writer for The Atlantic magazine, brought up yard signs in an article he wrote in mid-October. Tierney wrote about observations in his own neck of the woods: a neighbor putting up one sign seemed to spur adjacent neighbors to join in, decorating their lawns with names found on the ballot. He questioned if the displays were the result of something aggressively oppositional.
“When the initial sign is quickly followed by a flurry of others, are the newer-sign folks essentially giving a middle-finger salute to the neighbors down the block? Oh yeah?! HERE’s what I think of your Obama!”
Do people post signs in their front yards to urge passersby to vote for that candidate? Or are they declaring that they themselves are voting for that candidate?
Tierney wasn’t the only one to be unclear about the motives behind posting signs. Scholars Anad E. Sokhey and Todd Makse wrote a paper about the very subject. In 2008, they surveyed people in Franklin County, Ohio during the 2008 presidential election. Their work, “Not in My Front Yard—The Displaying of Yard Signs as a Form of Political Participation,” examines why people believe their intentions are when they post signs.
Of the over 3,320 individuals with yard signs surveyed, 66 percent said it was most important to show their pride. Only 38 percent answered that the importance of their signs was to “let the neighbors know.”
Makse and Sokhey’s conclusion was that people enjoy posting signs on their front lawns or on the bumpers of their cars because they feel like they’re participating.
Like a NFL football flag on your front porch on a Sunday, you aren’t asking your neighbors to root for your team. You’re showing your colors.
