Will Conflict Tear us Apart? The Effects of Conflict and Valenced Media Messages on Polarizing Attitudes Toward EU Immigration and Border Control

Autor(en)

Marijan van Klingeren, Hajo Boomgaarden, Claes de Vreese

Abstrakt

European migration and border control has occupied a prominent spot on the European political agenda. The news media present the topic in a polarized fashion and reports conflicting viewpoints on how the European Union (EU) and national governments should address the issue. We argue that this conflict in news messages can have a polarizing effect on public perceptions regarding the EU's performance on this topic, and that this effect can be moderated by the valence of news messages. A two-wave online panel survey experiment was conducted on a representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 376). The results indicate that conflict reinforces and thus polarizes policy attitudes, whereas a message's valence can change people's attitudes, which reduces the attitudinal gap. The implications of these findings concerning European border control and migration are discussed in the final section of this paper.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Amsterdam (UvA)

Journal

Public Opinion Quarterly

Band

81

Seiten

543-563

Anzahl der Seiten

21

ISSN

0033-362X

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw051

Publikationsdatum

05-2017

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

508009 Medienforschung, 508008 Medienanalyse

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Social Sciences(all), Communication, History, History and Philosophy of Science, Sociology and Political Science

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 10 – Weniger Ungleichheiten

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/will-conflict-tear-us-apart-the-effects-of-conflict-and-valenced-media-messages-on-polarizing-attitudes-toward-eu-immigration-and-border-control(37042de6-a131-4ae2-999e-def3f92f6d51).html