Topic: the role of emotions in political communication
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summary of the articles and lecture notes for the topic The Role of Emotions in Political Communication
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Topic: the role of emotions in political communication
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Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
Summary of all articles of the topic The role of emotions in political communication as well as all the lecture notes. Also includes a full list of concepts (begrippen) with definitions that were mentioned in the topic.
Topic: the role of emotions in political communication
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Exam – Topic: The role of
emotions in politics
Week 1
Literature
Nothing required
Lecture
Dimensions of media effects:
Knowledge
Opinions
Attitudes
Behaviour
Issue perceptions
Emotions
Research paradigms
1. Powerful media
a. Popularity of media
b. Principles of propaganda, media as manipulators
c. Psychological and biological theories
d. Stimulus-response model: hypodermic needle (if you show people a certain message
they will respond in a certain way)
2. A little bit less powerful media
a. The black box
i. Individual differences (Hadley Cantril)
ii. Intervening factors
iii. No isolated individuals but connected members of small networks
iv. So: stimulus -> black box -> response
3. Limited effects
4. Return to moderately powerful effects
a. Shift to long-term effects of media; social change
b. Increasing knowledge gap; cultivation of fear through the media
Agenda-setting (media affect what people think about) and framing (media affect how we think)
Moderators: not everybody is equally affected
Mediators: underlying mechanisms, how are people affected
EXAM: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE FRAMING GOES ONE STEP FURTHER, HOW TO THINK NOT
WHETHER TO THINK
Global warming or climate change different wording (framing) causes different
associations (certainty, understanding, worry, personal threat, issue priority and willingness
to join) global warming is perceived as worse
Two types of frames
Equivalence framing = different presentations of identical decision-making scenarios influence
people’s choices and evaluations (80% survive vs. 20% die)
Emphasis / issue framing = to efficiently process information, people apply frames (interpretative
schemas) to classify information and interpret it (OURS)
Most common frames
Generic: Responsibility frame, human interest frame, morality frame, conflict frame,
economic consequences frame
o Stats, figures, broader context, more factual
Issue-specific: refugee crisis (human drama, terrorist threat), turkey join EU (islam threat,
bridge to east)
o Individual stories, more emotional
Different frames have different effects.
Thematic affects opinions and episodic affects emotions.
Valence frames are persuading and mobilizing
Conflict frames have negative effect on opinion and are mobilizing
Strategy frames make people more cynical and are demobilizing
Shift in media reporting on politics? More emotions?
YES, but that’s good: it mobilizes non-voters and causes a bigger turnout
YES, but that’s bad: it polarizes the public debate
Role of the media: things are being shown that didn’t used to be shown, graphic things
Visual emotion info processing
The same content can trigger different emotions for different people
Can also be ineffective, people can become overwhelmed and shut it out
Populism uses rhetoric that rises emotional reactions
Political satire provokes positive emotions
Week 2
Literature
Schuck & Feinholdt (2016)
Focus in lecture on: model on valence framing, emotions and political dv’s
Frame = suggests what an issue is about; how one should make sense of it (through: selection,
emphasis, exclusion, elaboration)
Generic frames are applied to a wide range of topics, issue-specific frames are bound to a particular
issue.
Frame building = the emergence and shaping of a news frame
Visual framing = frames in visual material as well as the interaction between text and visual
information in what constitutes a frame
Computer-assisted, text-based content analysis: employing a machine-learning approach to analyse
large quantities of print/online news / social media
New research areas
(i) Role of individual predispositions and contextual contingencies (moderators)
(ii) Describing underlying mechanisms (mediators)
(iii) Testing in more realistic settings
, Basic model on how to analyse role of emotions in framing
RQ: What kind of emotions are triggered by political news frames, to what extent, under what
conditions, and what is their impact on what kind of relevant outcomes?
Affect = evaluations, such as positive or negative
Moods extend over time and context
Emotions embody acute and object-directed states
Feeling = conscious awareness of a prevailing emotional experience -> not emotion-specific
Dimensional theories
1. Valence: subjective state of feeling pleasure or displeasure in response to certain stimulus
and can vary in intensity
2. Arousal: physiological changes ranging from excitement to calmness
3. (potency <-> control or dominance <-> submissiveness)
Shortcomings: not all emotional features can be reduced to 2 or 3 dimension and inherently
descriptive rather than explanatory
Cognitive Appraisal Theories (CAT)
An emotional episode derives from a specific and nearly invariant pattern of appraisals.
They have a starting and end point.
Emotional episodes vary in duration and intensity.
Emotional episode has synchronized changes in components:
(i) Cognitive appraisals
(ii) Psychophysiology
(iii) Subjective feelings
(iv) Motivational tendencies
(v) Behavioural tendencies
A specific event is appraised by specific appraisal dimensions:
Novelty, certainty, agency and coping potential
So: event appraisal outcomes components impacted emotional episode
Role of emotions: emotions as channels or processes of news framing effects
A focus on discrete emotions offers more ground for isolating and specifying relationships between a
stimulus or frame and an emotional response.
Gross (2008)
Focus in lecture on: thematic vs. episodic framing, empathy
Frame = a central organizing idea or storyline that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events,
weaving a connection among them. Suggests what the controversy is about, the essence of the issue.
Episodic frames present an issue by offering a specific example, case study, or event oriented report
More compelling, draw more attention, emotionally engaging
Thematic frames place issues into a broader context
Episodic: individual attributions
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