Desirée Schmuck

The Effects of Anti-Immigrant Right-Wing Populist Ads on Implicit and Explicit Attitudes A Moderated Mediation Model

Across Europe, the use of negative portrayals of immigrants in populist political advertising has dramatically increased. An experimental study tested the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions for the effects of such ads on explicit and implicit attitudes toward foreigners. Findings revealed that populist ads strengthened intergroup anxiety and negative stereotypes for voters with lower educational degrees. This, in turn, led to more negative explicit attitudes. However, we observed stronger effects of populist ads on implicit attitudes for individuals with higher educational degrees. The necessity of including explicit as well as implicit measures in political communication research is discussed.

Questionable Research Practices in Experimental Communication Research: A Systematic Analysis From 1980 to 2013

Questionable research practices (QRPs) pose a major threat to any scientific discipline. This article analyzes QRPs with a content analysis of more than three decades of published experimental research in four flagship communication journals: Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Media Psychology. Findings reveal indications of small and insufficiently justified sample sizes, a lack of reported effect sizes, an indiscriminate removal of cases and items, an increasing inflation of p-values directly below p < .05, and a rising share of verified (as opposed to falsified) hypotheses. Implications for authors, reviewers, and editors are discussed.

Effects of Economic and Symbolic Threat Appeals in Right-Wing Populist Advertising on Anti-Immigrant Attitudes: The Impact of Textual and Visual Appeals

Right-wing populist parties portray immigrants as economic or symbolic threats in their political advertisements by constructing a moral divide between the “good” ordinary people and “bad” immigrants. Yet, it remains unclear how these different threat appeals contribute to the formation of anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens and what role visual elements play in producing these effects. A survey-experiment with a quota sample of 471 participants reveals that, overall, symbolic threat appeals exert stronger effects on anti-immigrant attitudes than economic ones. When presented via text alone, only symbolic—not economic—threat appeals increased anti-immigrant attitudes via the activation of heuristic processing such as the reliance on negative stereotypes or feelings of anxiety, in particular among lower-educated citizens. When visuals were present, both types of threat appeals enhanced anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens across all education levels based on heuristic processing. Additionally, high image-text congruency induced cognitive argument approval resulting in higher anti-immigrant attitudes.

“Muslims are not Terrorists”: Islamic State Coverage, Journalistic Differentiation Between Terrorism and Islam, Fear Reactions, and Attitudes Toward Muslims

Previous research shows that news about Islamist terrorism can seriously affect citizens’ fear reactions and influence non-Muslims’ out-group perceptions of Muslims. We argue that news coverage that explicitly links Islam to terrorism or terrorists of the Islamic State (IS) may trigger fears in non-Muslim individuals. In contrast, news differentiation (i.e., explicitly distinguishing between Muslims and Muslim terrorists) may dampen particular fear reactions in citizens. To test the specific effects of news differentiation, a controlled laboratory experiment was conducted. Results showed that undifferentiated news about IS terrorism increased participants’ fear of terrorism and resulted in hostile perceptions toward Muslims in general. However, fear of terrorism only enhanced hostile attitudes toward Muslims for individuals with negative and moderately positive prior experiences with Muslims. For those with very positive experiences, no such relationship was found. Implications of these findings for journalism practice and intergroup relations in multicultural societies are discussed.

It’s Us against Them: A Comparative Experiment on the Effects of Populist Messages Communicated via Social Media

ABSTRACT Populism has gained momentum all around the globe. Social media channels contribute to the success of populism by providing an attractive environment for both politicians and ordinary citizens to disseminate their political ideas. Building on previous research, this study argues that attributing blame to culprit others, such as immigrants or the political elites, for causing major societal problems facing the ordinary people is central to populism. By employing a 2 × 2 between-subjects comparative survey experiment, we investigated the effects of these blame attributions in populist online messages on citizens’ exclusionist and anti-establishment populist attitudes in two Western European countries, Austria and the Netherlands (N = 646). Additionally, for the first time in extant research, we distinguished between populist politicians and ordinary citizens as communicators of populist messages. Results revealed that messages blaming the elites or immigrants bolstered citizens’ populist attitudes, but only for those who supported the source of the message. For those who opposed the source, in contrast, populist blame attributions reduced populist attitudes. These findings help us to understand how the core element of pervasive populist messages – attributing blame – affects the populist attitudes of which citizens.

What drives interaction in political actors’ Facebook posts? Profile and content predictors of user engagement and political actors’ reactions

ABSTRACT Based on a quantitative content analysis of political actors’ Facebook posts (N = 1915), this study investigates profile-level and post-level drivers of user engagement (comments, likes, and shares) by employing a multilevel approach. For the first time in extant research, we also examine the factors that drive political actors to react to user comments. Findings indicate that the number of followers, the use of an official fan profile, and party vote share were negatively related to political actors’ reactions to user comments. Furthermore, party profiles were least successful in stimulating user engagement. On the post level, we found that reasoning, post length, and references to competitive political actors have the potential to increase different types of user engagement. Negative, but not positive tonality increased user engagement and positive emotional expressions had a stronger effect on user engagement than negative emotions. Furthermore, humorous posts were more likely to be commented, liked, or shared, while mobilization cues had predominantly negative effects on user engagement.

Start Spreading the News: A Comparative Experiment on the Effects of Populist Communication on Political Engagement in Sixteen European Countries:

Although populist communication has become pervasive throughout Europe, many important questions on its political consequences remain unanswered. First, previous research has neglected the differential effects of populist communication on the Left and Right. Second, internationally comparative studies are missing. Finally, previous research mostly studied attitudinal outcomes, neglecting behavioral effects. To address these key issues, this paper draws on a unique, extensive, and comparative experiment in sixteen European countries (N = 15,412) to test the effects of populist communication on political engagement. The findings show that anti-elitist populism has the strongest mobilizing effects, and anti-immigrant messages have the strongest demobilizing effects. Moreover, national conditions such as the level of unemployment and the electoral success of the populist Left and Right condition the impact of populist communication. These findings provide important insights into the persuasiveness of populist messages spread throughout the European continent.

Antecedents of strategic game framing in political news coverage

The use of strategic game framing is predominant in mainstream news reporting of politics. Nevertheless, systematic research on the specific antecedents of strategic game framing – especially in non-electoral periods – is scarce. Against this background, this quantitative content analysis of print, TV and online news investigates the antecedents of strategic game framing in a non-electoral context in two Western European countries – Austria and Switzerland. The study focuses on media type, online versus offline editions, and content-related variables as antecedents of the media’s framing of political news. Findings reveal that the highly competitive online environment, opinionated story types and issues focusing on the functioning of democracy fuel the use of the strategic game frame in political news coverage in non-electoral times. Furthermore, the results indicate that content-related predictors moderate the influence of media-related antecedents such as newspaper type. Implications of these findings are discussed.

The Effects of Environmental Brand Attributes and Nature Imagery in Green Advertising

ABSTRACT Following Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez’ [(2009). Green advertising revisited. Conditioning virtual nature experiences. International Journal of Advertising, 28(4), 715–739] approach, this experimental study compares the effects of three types of green print ads: a non-green ad, a functional green ad promoting environmental product attributes, and a combined nature ad featuring a pleasant nature image in addition to functional attributes. We extend prior research by simultaneously testing moderating and mediating mechanisms to explain brand attitudes and purchase intention. Using a quota sample of 456 consumers, findings suggest that the functional ad enhances perceptions of environmental brand benefits, which positively affect purchase intention partially mediated by brand attitudes. The combined nature ad, by contrast, activates an additional emotional process of virtually experiencing nature which positively influences brand attitudes and purchase intention beyond perceptions of environmental brand benefits. The effects of the combined nature ad are even stronger for highly involved consumers.

The Islamic State in the News: Journalistic Differentiation of Islamist Terrorism From Islam, Terror News Proximity, and Islamophobic Attitudes

We examined how the journalistic differentiation of Muslims from Islamist terrorists and terror news proximity (i.e., proximity of terroristic acts to viewing audience) influence the effects of new...