Editing Negative campaigning (section)

{{Short description|Campaign strategy focused on attacking other alternatives}}
{{Globalize|article|USA|2name=the United States|date=October 2017}}

{{Political campaigning}}

'''Negative campaigning''' is the process of deliberately spreading negative information about someone or something to damage their [[public relations|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 image is relative; thus, to be successful, negative campaigning has to take into account current values of the group it addresses. The degree of strictness in practicing the group's values as opposed to its tolerance for violating the norms has also to be taken into consideration.