Populist Twitter posts in news stories: Statement recognition and the polarizing effects on candidate evaluation and anti-immigrant attitudes

Autor(en)

Raffael Heiss, Christian von Sikorski, Jörg Matthes

Abstrakt

Research in information processing suggests that the journalistic practice of embedding right-wing populist Twitter posts in news may stimulate political polarization. To test this notion, we conducted an online experiment (N=379). We investigated how highlighted right-wing populist statements affected individuals from different ideological stances and whether potential effects were determined by Twitter-specific characteristics (Twitter frame, profile picture). We exposed participants to two articles, each including a statement by a politician of the Austrian Freedom Party. In the first group, the statements were not highlighted (control group). In the second and third group, the statements appeared as conventional block quotes either without (G2) or with (G3) a picture of the politician. In the fourth and fifth group, the statements were highlighted as Twitter posts, again either without (G4) or with (G5) a picture of the politician. Results revealed that all highlighting conditions increased statement recognition among left-wing individuals. However, the full Twitter post condition exerted the strongest effect. Higher recognition then decreased left-wing individuals' anti-immigrant attitudes and sympathy toward the right-wing populist candidate. Thus, embedding right-wing populists' Twitter posts may induce disconfirmation bias among left-wing voters and trigger a process in which they strengthen their initial attitudes.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

MCI Management Center Innsbruck, Universität Koblenz-Landau

Journal

Journalism Practice

Band

13

Seiten

742-758

Anzahl der Seiten

17

ISSN

1751-2786

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2018.1564883

Publikationsdatum

2019

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft, 508014 Publizistik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Communication

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/populist-twitter-posts-in-news-stories-statement-recognition-and-the-polarizing-effects-on-candidate-evaluation-and-antiimmigrant-attitudes(58eb9422-e1a8-4b76-a59c-b21c263e42b6).html